EGYPT  IN 
TRANSITION 

SIDNEY    LOW 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Gene  Fowler 


EGYPT   IN    TRANSITION 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

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ATLANTA   •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

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THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


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l'hoto  by  O.  C    Ucresforrt. 

Thk  Rk;ht  Honorable  thk  Eakl  of  Cromer,  G.C.B.,  O.M. 


EGYPT  IN  TRANSITION 


BY 

SIDNEY    LOW 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION 

BY 

THE    EARL  OF   CROMER 

G.C.B.,  ETC. 


WITH  PORTRAITS 


Neto  ffork 

THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

1914 

All  rigbtt   reserved 


Copyright,  1914, 
By  THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  February,  1914. 


NortocoB  tyttt* 

J.  8.  Cushlng  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


Colldg* 
Library 

DTSO 


EDMUND  GOSSE,  C.B.,  LL.D. 

POET  AND  CRITIC 

WHO   HAS  VINDICATED  THE   LITERATURE  OF  THE   SMALLER 

NATIONS  AND  ILLUMINATED  THAT  OF 

THE    GREATER 


INTRODUCTION 

I  have  been  informed  on  good  authority  that  a  few 
years  ago  an  English  gentleman  paid  a  visit  to  a  high 
official  of  the  Sudanese  Government  resident  at  Khar- 
tum, and,  as  a  preliminary  to  a  searching  interrogatory 
on  a  number  of  points  of  great  public  interest,  stated 
that  he  had  just  arrived  and  that  his  intention  was 
'to  get  at  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  the  people  of  the 
Sudan.'  The  official  in  question  was  naturally  rather 
staggered  at  the  declaration  of  a  programme  of  such 
far-reaching  ambition,  all  the  more  so  because  he  had 
himself  passed  many  toilsome  years  in  the  country, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  had  made  strenuous  efforts 
to  understand  the  habits  and  aspirations  of  its  inhabit- 
ants, but  did  not  feel  at  all  confident  of  the  degree 
of  success  which  he  had  attained.  He  therefore 
anxiously  inquired  of  the  newcomer  how  long  a  time 
he  intended  to  devote  to  the  accomplishment  of  his 
self-imposed  task.  The  reply  given  by  this  ardent 
seeker  after  Sudanese  truth  was  that  he  proposed  to 
leave  Khartum  by  the  train  on  the  following  Friday 
morning. 

It  may  be,  albeit  I  was  told  the  anecdote  as  an 
authentic  fact,  that  this  is  a  caricature,  but  in  any  case 
it  departs  from  the  reality  less  than  many  might,  as  a 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

first  impression,  be  inclined  to  think.  In  truth,  the 
rapidity  with  which  casual  visitors  to  the  East  occa- 
sionally form  their  opinions,  the  dogmatism  with  which 
they  assert  those  opinions,  which  are  often  in  reality 
formed  before  they  cross  the  British  Channel,  and  the 
hasty  and  sweeping  generalisations  which  they  at 
times  base  on  very  imperfect  data,  is  a  never-ending 
source  of  wonderment  to  those  who  have  passed  their 
lives  in  endeavouring  to  unravel  the  tangled  skein  of 
Eastern  thought  and  have  had  actual  experience  of 
the  difficulties  attendant  on  Eastern  government  and 
administration.  The  scorn  and  derision  excited  by 
these  mental  processes  have  found  expression  in  the 
creation  of  an  idealised  type,  under  the  name  of  'Pad- 
gett, M.P.,'  who  is  supposed  to  embody  all  the  special 
and  somewhat  displeasing  characteristics  of  his  class. 
There  is,  however,  another  side  to  the  question. 
My  personal  experience  rather  leads  me  to  the  con- 
clusion that  what  Pericles  said  of  women  holds  good 
about  British  officials  in  the  East,  that  is  to  say,  that 
the  less  they  are  talked  about  the  better.  I  have 
noticed  that  on  many  occasions  the  really  good  work 
done  has  varied  in  the  inverse  proportion  of  the  degree 
of  public  attention  which  it  has  attracted  whether  in 
the  sense  of  praise  or  blame.  Nevertheless,  it  is  cer- 
tainly desirable,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  to  serve 
as  an  antidote  to  current  fables,  that  the  British  public 
should  have  accurate  information  furnished  to  them 
as    regards    the    proceedings    of    their    agents    abroad. 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

It  is  equally  desirable,  even  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  agents  themselves,  that  those  proceedings  should 
be  from  time  to  time  scrutinised  by  intelligent  and 
independent  witnesses  who  are  not  bound  by  any 
official  ties.  Moreover,  it  sometimes  happens  that  a 
newcomer,  bringing  a  fresh  mind  to  bear  upon  the 
facts  with  which  he  has  to  deal,  may  notice  points 
which,  owing  to  custom  and  familiarity,  have  escaped 
the  attention  of  residents,  and  may  thus  make  sugges- 
tions of  real  practical  utility.  The  value  of  the  in- 
formation thus  afforded  to  the  public  necessarily  de- 
pends on  the  intelligence,  the  powers  of  observation, 
the  absence  from  prejudice,  and  the  care  displayed  in 
the  collection  of  data  exercised  by  the  informant.  In 
the  present  instance  all  who  are  interested  in  the  affairs 
of  Egypt  and  the  Sudan  have  been  singularly  fortunate. 
Mr.  Sidney  Low  entered  on  his  task  already  equipped 
with  a  wide  experience  gained  in  other  countries.  He 
evidently  spared  no  pains  to  ensure  accuracy  in  the 
statements  of  his  facts.  His  letters  testify  to  the  acute- 
ness  of  his  powers  of  observation.  His  pleasing  liter- 
ary style  is  calculated  to  attract  many  who  would  be 
repelled  by  more  ponderous  official  or  semi-official 
utterances.  The  result  is  that  he  has  produced  a 
lively  and,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  a  very  trustworthy 
account  of  the  present  conditions  of  affairs  in  the 
Valley  of  the  Nile.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  commending 
what  he  has  written  to  the  favourable  consideration 
of  all  who  are  interested  in  the  subject. 


x  INTRODUCTION 

The  abundant  literature  which  exists  on  modern 
Egypt,  coupled  with  the  fact  that  a  steady  stream  of 
winter  visitors  now  passes  annually  through  Cairo, 
have  contributed  to  render  the  public  tolerably  familiar 
with  the  present  condition  of  Egyptian  affairs.  On 
these,  therefore,  I  need  not  dwell  at  any  length.  I  wish, 
however,  to  repeat  an  opinion  which  I  have  frequently 
expressed  on  former  occasions,  namely,  that  by  far 
the  most  important  question  connected  with  Egyptian 
internal  administration  at  present  is  the  abolition,  or 
at  all  events  the  modification,  of  the  Capitulations. 
The  evils  of  the  system,  on  which  Mr.  Low  dwells 
in  one  of  his  letters,  are  universally  recognised.  The 
difficulty  is  to  find  a  remedy,  which  shall  at  the  same 
time  be  both  effective  and  practicable.  I  have  in  my 
official  reports,  and  more  recently  in  an  article  published 
in  the  Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  made  certain  sug- 
gestions for  solving  the  legislative  dilemma  which  at 
present  exists.  I  do  not  attach  any  exaggerated  im- 
portance to  the  particular  scheme  which  I  have  recom- 
mended, but,  without  attempting  to  go  fully  into  the 
subject  on  the  present  occasion,  I  may  say  that  no 
plan  of  reform  can,  I  am  convinced,  be  successfully 
carried  into  execution  unless  it  steers  between  two 
extremes.  In  the  first  place,  it  would  be  in  the  highest 
degree  unjust  and  also  impolitic  to  deprive  the  Euro- 
peans resident  in  Egypt  of  their  present  privileges 
without  providing  adequate  guarantees  against  the 
recurrence  of  those  abuses  to  guard  against  which  the 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

privileges  were  originally  created.  The  best  guarantee 
would  probably  be  the  creation  of  machinery  which 
would  in  some  form  or  another  enable  European  resi- 
dents in  Egypt  to  make  their  voices  heard  before  any 
legislation  affecting  their  special  interests  was  under- 
taken. There  are  many  ways  in  which  this  object 
may  be  accomplished,  neither  have  I  any  sort  of  wish 
to  dogmatise  as  to  which  method  is  the  best ;  but 
whatever  plan  be  adopted  it  will  certainly  prove  a 
failure  unless  the  general  principle  is  recognised  that 
personal  rule,  which  must  for  a  long  time  to  come  be 
the  predominating  feature  in  Egyptian  administration, 
must  in  this  instance  be  tempered  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  enable  local  European  opinion  to  be  brought  into 
council.  Equally  objectionable  would  be  any  attempt 
to  treat  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  Nile  Valley  as  a  single 
or  homogeneous  political  unit,  and  to  amalgamate 
the  machinery  for  purely  Egyptian  and  for  European 
legislation. 

Between  the  extreme  of  personal  government  and 
that  of  parliamentary  institutions  of  the  conventional 
type  there  lies  a  tolerably  wide  field  for  action.  The 
statesmanship  of  those  responsible  for  the  government 
of  Egypt  will  be  shown  by  the  extent  to  which  they 
will  be  able  to  devise  a  plan  not  open  to  the  charge  of 
excess  in  either  direction.  In  the  meanwhile,  there  is 
a  distinct  risk  that  in  view  of  the  great  difficulty  of 
finding  a  practicable  and  unobjectionable  solution  to 
this  question ;    of  the  fact  that  the  subject,  which  is 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

very  complicated,  is  but  little  understood  in  this 
country ;  and  of  the  further  fact  that  public  attention 
is  at  present  directed  to  other  and  admittedly  more 
important  topics,  matters  will  be  allowed  to  drift  on 
as  they  are,  and  that  the  present  regime  will  continue 
without  any  very  substantial  change.  Such  a  con- 
clusion would  be  unsatisfactory  and  disappointing  to 
those  who  are  interested  in  the  well-being  of  Egypt 
and  its  inhabitants.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  will 
be  better  to  drift  on  as  at  present  rather  than  to  take 
a  step  in  a  false  direction. 

The  public  are,  however,  generally  speaking,  less  fully 
acquainted  with  Sudanese  than  with  Egyptian  affairs. 
Mr.  Low's  letters  from  the  Sudan  are,  therefore,  to  be 
welcomed.  They  constitute,  as  I  venture  to  think, 
the  most  instructive  and  interesting  portion  of  his 
book.  It  is  with  very  special  pleasure  that  I  note  that 
so  competent  an  observer  as  Mr.  Low  is  able  to  give 
a  very  satisfactory  account  of  Sudanese  progress.  I  trust 
it  will  not  be  thought  presumptuous  if  I  supplement 
his  account  by  stating  the  main  causes  which,  in  my 
opinion,  have  contributed  towards  rendering  that 
progress  possible. 

Unquestionably,  amongst  such  elements  in  the  situa- 
tion as  are  under  human  control,  the  first  place  must 
be  given  to  the  fact  that  the  form  of  government  in 
the  Sudan  is  singularly  adapted  to  the  special  condition 
and  requirements  of  the  country.  It  is  probable  that, 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  experts  who  might  be  num- 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

bered  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand,  there  are  not  a  dozen 
people  in  England  who  could  give  even  an  approxi- 
mately accurate  account  of  what  that  form  of  govern- 
ment is.  Neither  can  the  general  ignorance  which 
prevails  on  this  subject  cause  any  surprise,  for  the 
political  status  of  the  Sudan  is  different  to  that  of  any 
other  country  in  the  world.  It  was  little  short  of 
providential  that  at  the  time  this  question  had  to  be 
settled  a  Minister  presided  at  the  Foreign  Office  who 
did  not  allow  himself  to  be  unduly  bound  by  precedent 
and  convention.  The  problem  which  had  to  be  solved 
was  how  the  Sudan,  without  being  designated  as 
British  territory,  could  be  spared  all  the  grave  incon- 
veniences which  would  have  resulted  if  it  had  continued 
to  be  classed  as  Ottoman  territory.  When  the  cannon 
at  Omdurman  had  once  cleared  the  ground  for  political 
action,  it  appeared  at  first  sight  that  politicians  were 
impaled  on  the  horns  of  an  insoluble  dilemma.  Lord 
Salisbury,  however,  whose  memory  I  shall  never  cease 
to  revere,  said  to  me  on  one  occasion  that  when  once 
one  gets  to  the  foot  of  apparently  impassable  moun- 
tains it  is  generally  possible  by  diligent  search  to  find 
some  way  of  getting  through  them. 

So  it  proved  in  the  present  instance.  It  occurred  to 
me  that  the  Sudan  might  be  made  neither  English  nor 
Egyptian,  but  Anglo-Egyptian.  Sir  Malcolm  Mcll- 
wraith  clothed  this  extremely  illogical  political  conception 
in  suitable  legal  phraseology.  I  must  confess  that  I  made 
the  proposal  with  no  very  sanguine  hopes  that  it  would 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

be  accepted.  Lord  Salisbury,  however,  never  thought 
twice  on  the  matter.  He  joyfully  agreed  to  the  creation 
of  a  hybrid  State  of  a  nature  eminently  calculated 
to  shock  the  susceptibilities  of  international  jurists. 
The  possible  objections  of  foreign  governments  were 
conjured  away  by  the  formal  declaration  that  no  pref- 
erence would  be  accorded  to  British  trade.  The 
British  and  Egyptian  flags  were  hoisted  with  pomp 
on  the  palace  of  Khartum,  and  from  that  time  forth 
Sir  Reginald  Wingate  and  his  very  capable  subordinates 
have  been  given  a  free  hand. 

The  second  cause,  to  which  the  success  of  the  Sudanese 
administration  may,  in  my  opinion,  be  attributed  is 
that,  broadly  speaking,  the  Sudanese  officials  have 
been  left  to  themselves.  There  has  been  absolutely 
no  interference  from  London.  Nothing  has,  for- 
tunately, as  yet  occurred  to  awaken  marked  parlia- 
mentary interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  Sudan. 
Supervision  from  Cairo  has  been  limited  to  guidance 
on  a  few  important  points  of  principle,  to  a  very  limited 
amount  of  financial  control,  and  occasionally,  but 
very  rarely,  to  advice  on  matters  of  detail  which  has 
invariably  been  communicated  in  private  and  unofficial 
form.  A  system  of  this  sort  cannot,  of  course,  be  made 
to  work  satisfactorily  unless  thorough  confidence  is 
entertained  in  the  agents  who  are  responsible  for  its 
working.  The  agents  employed  in  the  Sudan  have 
always  been  very  carefully  chosen,  and  they  have  fully 
justified  the  confidence  which  has  been  shown  in  them. 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

They  have  been  mainly,  though  by  no  means  exclu- 
sively, soldiers.  The  civilian  element  is,  however, 
being  gradually  increased. 

I  may  perhaps  conveniently  take  this  opportunity 
of  explaining  the  genesis  of  the  Sudanese  Civil  Service. 
In  the  first  instance,  the  civil  work  of  the  Sudan  was 
carried  on  almost  exclusively  by  officers  of  the  army. 
This  system  continued  practically  unchanged  until 
the  commencement  of  the  war  in  South  Africa.  It  was 
not  modified  by  reason  of  its  having  worked  badly, 
nor  because  any  special  predilection  was  entertained 
for  civilian  in  preference  to  military  agency.  Speaking 
with  a  somewhat  lengthy  experience  of  administrative 
work  done  by  both  soldiers  and  civilians,  I  may  say 
that  I  find  it  quite  impossible  to  generalise  on  the  sub- 
ject of  their  respective  merits  —  I  mean,  of  course, 
in  respect  to  ordinary  administrative  work,  and  not 
as  regards  posts  where  special  legal,  educational  or 
other  technical  qualifications  have  to  be  considered. 
In  the  present  case  my  feeling  was  that  a  certain  number 
of  active  young  men  endowed  with  good  health,  high 
character,  and  fair  abilities  were  required  to  assist  in 
governing  the  country,  and  that  it  was  a  matter  of 
complete  indifference  whether  they  had  received  their 
early  training  at  Sandhurst,  or  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge. 

But  the  South  African  war  brought  out  one  great 
disadvantage  which  is  an  inevitable  accompaniment  to 
the  employment  of  army  officers  in  civil  capacities. 
It  is  that  they  are  liable  to  be  suddenly  removed.     The 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

officers  themselves  naturally  wish  to  join  their  regi- 
ments when  there  is  a  prospect  of  seeing  active  service. 
The  War  Office,  although  I  think  it  at  times  allows  itself 
to  be  rather  too  much  hide-bound  by  regulations,  nat- 
urally looks,  on  an  occasion  of  this  sort,  solely  to  the 
efficiency  of  the  troops  which  it  sends  into  the  field. 
The  result  is  that  the  head  of  a  Government  such  as 
that  of  the  Sudan  may  suddenly  find  himself  deprived 
of  some  of  his  most  valuable  agents,  and  is  thus  ex- 
posed to  the  risk  of  having  his  administration  seri- 
ously dislocated  at  a  critical  moment. 

Frequent  changes  in  any  administration  are  at  all 
times  to  be  deprecated.  One  of  the  reasons  of  what- 
ever successes  have  been  achieved  in  the  Nile  Valley 
has  been  that  all  such  changes  have,  so  far  as  was 
possible,  been  avoided.  They  are  especially  to  be 
deprecated  at  a  time  when  events  of  importance,  such 
as  those  which  occurred  in  South  Africa,  send  an  electric 
shock  through  the  whole  British  Empire,  and  more  or 
less  affect  indirectly  all  its  component  parts.  To  any 
one  sitting  in  a  London  office  the  removal  of  half  a 
dozen  young  officers  and  the  substitution  of  others 
in  their  place  may  not  seem  a  matter  of  vital  impor- 
tance. But  the  question  will  be  regarded  in  a  very 
different  light  by  the  head  of  an  administration  such 
as  the  Sudan,  who  will  very  fully  realise  how  impossible 
it  is,  whether  in  respect  to  civil  or  military  appoint- 
ments, to  fill  at  once  the  vacuum  caused  by  the  abrupt 
departure  of  even  a  very  few  trained  men.     As  a  matter 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

of  fact  the  withdrawal  of  a  certain  number  of  officers 
from  the  Sudan  to  go  to  South  Africa  led  to  conse- 
quences which  were  serious,  and  might  well  have  been 
much  more  so.  It  was  manifestly  desirable  to  do  all 
that  was  possible  to  obviate  any  such  risks  in  the 
future.  Hence  the  embryo  of  a  Sudanese  Civil  Ser- 
vice was  brought  into  being. 

I  should  add  that  another  very  potent  cause  which 
has  contributed  to  the  successful  administration  of  the 
Sudan  is  that  the  officials,  both  civil  and  military,  have 
been  well  paid  and  that  the  leave  rules  have  been 
generous.  These  are  points  to  which  I  attach  the 
utmost  importance.  In  those  outlying  dominions  of 
the  Crown  where  coloured  races  have  to  be  ruled 
through  European  agency,  everything  depends  on  the 
character  and  ability  of  a  very  small  number  of  indi- 
viduals. Probably  none  but  those  who  have  them- 
selves been  responsible  for  the  general  direction  of  an 
administration  in  these  regions  can  fully  realise  the 
enormous  amount  of  harm  —  sometimes  irremediable 
harm  —  which  can  be  done  by  the  misconduct  or  indis- 
cretion of  a  single  individual.  Misconduct  on  the  part 
of  British  officials  is,  to  their  credit  be  it  said,  extremely 
rare.  Indiscretion  or  want  of  judgment  constitutes 
greater  danger,  and,  considering  the  very  great  diffi- 
culties which  the  officials  in  question  have  at  times  to 
encounter,  it  cannot  be  expected  that  they  should  not 
occasionally  commit  some  venial  errors. 

The  best  safeguard  against  the  committal  of  any  such 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

errors  is  to  discard  absolutely  the  practice  of  selecting 
for  employment  abroad  any  who  for  whatsoever  reason 
have  been  whole  or  partial  failures  in  other  capacities 
at  home.  Personally,  I  regard  anything  in  the  nature 
of  jobbing  these  appointments  as  little  short  of  criminal ; 
and  although  my  confidence  in  the  benefits  to  be  de- 
rived from  parliamentary  interference  in  the  affairs 
of  our  Eastern  dominions  is  limited,  there  is,  in  my 
opinion,  one  point  as  to  which  such  interference,  if 
properly  exercised,  may  be  most  salutary.  A  very 
careful  watch  may  and  should  be  kept  on  any  tendency 
to  job,  whether  that  tendency  be  displayed  by  the 
executive  Government  or,  as  is  quite  as  probable, 
by  Members  of  Parliament  or  others  connected  with 
the  working  of  party  machinery.  Imperialist  England 
requires,  not  the  mediocre  by-products  of  the  race, 
but  the  flower  of  those  who  are  turned  out  from  our 
schools  and  colleges  to  carry  out  successfully  an  Im- 
perial policy. 

Their  services  cannot  be  secured  unless  they  are 
adequately  paid.  Of  all  the  mistakes  that  can  be 
committed  in  the  execution  of  an  Imperialist  policy 
the  greatest,  in  my  opinion,  is  to  attempt  to  run  a  big 
undertaking  'on  the  cheap.'  I  am,  of  course,  very 
fully  aware  of  the  financial  difficulties  to  be  encountered 
in  granting  a  high  scale  of  salaries.  I  can  speak  with 
some  experience  on  this  point,  inasmuch  as  for  a 
long  period,  during  the  early  days  of  our  Egyptian 
troubles,  I  had  to  deal  with  a  semi-bankrupt  Exchequer. 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

But  my  reply  to  the  financial  argument  is  that  if 
money  is  not  forthcoming  to  pay  the  price  necessary 
to  secure  the  services  of  a  really  competent  man,  it  is 
far  preferable  to  wait  and  not  to  make  any  appointment 
at  all.  Apart  from  the  consideration  that  high  ability 
can  or  ought  to  be  able  to  secure  its  own  price,  it  is  not 
just  to  expose  any  European  to  the  temptations  which, 
in  the  East,  are  almost  the  invariable  accompaniment 
of  very  low  salaries ;  and,  although  to  the  honour  of 
British  officials  it  may  be  said  that  the  cases  in  which 
they  have  succumbed  to  those  temptations  are  so 
rare  as  to  be  almost  negligible,  the  State  is  none  the 
less  under  a  moral  obligation  to  place  its  employes  in 
such  positions  as  to  prevent  personal  feelings  of  honour 
and  probity  being  the  sole  guarantee  for  integrity. 

Scarcely  less  important  is  the  question  of  leave. 
A  period  of  nine  consecutive  months  is  quite  long 
enough  for  any  European  to  remain  in  such  a  climate 
as  the  Sudan.  After  the  expiration  of  that  time,  his 
physical  health  and  mental  vigour  become  impaired. 
Moreover,  he  is  liable  to  get  into  a  groove,  and  to  attach 
an  undue  importance  to  local  circumstances,  which 
loom  large  on  the  spot,  but  which  are  capable  of  being 
reduced  to  more  just  proportions  by  change  of  climate, 
scenery  and  society. 

There  is  one  further  point  to  which  attention  may 
be  drawn.  I  have  already  alluded  to  the  desirability 
of  avoiding  frequent  changes  in  the  personnel  of  the 
subordinate   staff.     The   same   holds   good   even   to   a 


xx  INTRODUCTION 

greater  extent  in  respect  to  the  highest  appointments. 
It  almost  invariably  happens  that  sound  and  durable 
reforms  take  time  in  their  conception  and  execution, 
and  that  they  are  slow  in  their  operation.  It  is  an  im- 
mense advantage  if  the  same  individual  or  individuals 
who  are  responsible  for  initiating  the  reform  can  also 
for  a  certain  period  watch  over  its  execution  and  opera- 
tion. The  continuity  of  policy  gained  by  the  long 
tenure  of  office  which  has  been  enjoyed  by  Sir  Reginald 
Wingate  has  been  of  incalculable  value  to  the  Sudan. 

I  have  now,  I  think,  indicated  the  principal  reasons 
which  have  enabled  the  Sudan  to  progress  in  the  man- 
ner recorded  by  Mr.  Low.  Under  one  condition  — 
and  it  is  a  condition  of  the  utmost  importance  —  that 
progress  will,  I  hope  and  believe,  be  steady  and  con- 
tinuous.    It  is  that  the  pace  should  not  be  forced. 

CROMER. 
36  Wimpole  Street,  London, 
December  8,  191 3. 


NOTE  BY  THE  AUTHOR 

The  chapters  that  follow  were  written  after  visits 
to  Egypt  and  the  Sudan,  in  which  I  endeavoured  to 
gain  some  insight  into  the  political,  social,  and  adminis- 
trative conditions  of  those  countries.  They  are  in- 
tended to  convey  some  account,  slight,  but  I  hope 
faithful,  of  my  impressions  of  the  territory  in  that 
stage  of  transition  which  ensued  after  the  conclusion 
of  Lord  Cromer's  great  period  of  reconstruction  and 
financial  readjustment  —  the  stage  which  lay  between 
the  reconquest  of  the  Sudan  by  Lord  Kitchener,  and 
his  return  to  Cairo  as  British  Agent  and  Consul-General. 
It  was  thus  the  Nile  lands,  in  certain  of  their  aspects, 
presented  themselves  to  an  observer,  with  some  knowl- 
edge of  political  and  social  developments  at  other 
epochs,  and  in  other  countries  of  the  East  and  the  West. 

Most  descriptions  of  Egypt  begin  with  the  Nile 
mouths  or  the  capital,  and  work  upwards  towards  the 
tropical  provinces.  I  have  preferred  to  start  with  the 
Sudan,  which  was  the  part  of  the  area  first  examined 
at  close  quarters,  and  thence  to  follow  the  course  of  the 
great  river  downwards  to  the  Delta  and  the  sea. 

S.  L. 


ZXl 


CONTENTS 


Introduction    . 
Author's  Note 


CHAPTER 

I.  The  Desert  Train    . 

II.  A  City  of  Romance  . 

III.  The  Growing  of  Khartum 

IV.  Omdurman 

V.  Anglo-Sudanese  Society  . 

VI.  Concerning  Politics  and  Persons 

VII.  Some  Sudanese  Problems 

VIII.  Simpkinson  Bey  .... 

IX.  Concerning  Women,  Soldiers,  and 

X.  The  New  Gate  of  Africa 

XI.  State  Socialism  in  the  Sudan 

XII.  A  Nocturne        .... 

XIII.  A  Sudan  Plantation 

XIV.  Land  and  Water 

XV.  The  Bridle  of  the  Flood 

XVI.  The  Clients  of  Cook 

XVII.  The  Hills  of  the  Dead  . 

XVIII.  Cairo  Impressions 

XIX.  In  the  Delta     .... 

XX.  Mr.  Vaporopoulos     . 

XXI.  The  Schools  of  the  Prophet 

XXII.  The  Occupation 


Civilians 


PAGE 

vii 


i 

9 

*9 

3i 

40 

5i 
62 

74 
84 
93 
i°3 
in 
120 
132 
141 

'53 
162 
169 
179 
192 
202 
212 


xxiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXIII.  Governing  Elements,  Old  and  New    .        .        .  223 

XXIV.  Government  by  Inspection 233 

XXV.     Halting  Justice 242 

XXVI.    Some  Recent  Reforms 253 

XXVII.    The  Drag  on  the  Wheel 270 

XXVIII.    Conclusions 286 

INDEX 311 


PORTRAITS 

The  Right  Hon.  the  Earl  of  Cromer.  G.C.B.,  O.M.,  etc. 

Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 

Field-Marshal  Viscount  Kitchener  of  Khartum,  G.C.B., 

O.M.,  etc 60 

Lieut. -General  Sir  Francis  Reginald  Wingate,  G.C.V.O., 

etc. 122 

Slatin  Pasha,  G.C.V.O.,  etc. 182 

The  Khedive 244 

Sir  William  Willcocks,  K.C.M.G 300 


EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 


EGYPT   IN   TRANSITION 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   DESERT  TRAIN 

The  Egypt  of  history  paused  at  that  gorge  among  the 
Nubian  rocks  where  the  Nile  spouts  its  way  over  the 
Second  Cataract.  Often  it  could  not  get  so  far,  and  the 
frontier  fell  back  to  the  First  Cataract,  where  now  the 
great  dam  blocks  the  stream  by  the  island  temples  of 
Philae ;  sometimes  an  ambitious  ruler  pushed  his  armies 
to  the  south  and  levied  tribute  from  the  tribes  and 
nations  towards  the  Equator ;  once  or  twice  in  the  age- 
long process  the  movement  was  reversed,  and  the  lower 
valley  of  the  river  has  been  subject  to  the  masters  of 
the  upper  plains.  But  nearly  always,  be  it  under 
Usertsen  or  Ramses,  under  the  Ptolemies,  the  Romans, 
the  Arabs,  or  the  Turks,  a  line  was  drawn  at  some 
border  fortress  below  the  Cataract,  by  the  site  of  what 
in  modern  times  is  called  Wady  Haifa.  Egypt,  with 
one  hand  clasped  to  Asia,  ended  here;  all  beyond  was 
Africa  —  vast,  confused,  mysterious,  incomprehensible, 
at  once  a  menace  and  a  temptation  ;  a  land  perhaps  to 
prey  upon,  perhaps  to  fear,  but  one  that  seemed  to 
have  little  kinship  or  community  with  the  kindly, 
habitable  earth  men  knew.  There,  at  Wady  Haifa, 
i?  i 


2  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

where  to-day  you  first  touch  the  Sudan  soil  and  leave  the 
Nile  boat  for  the  train  that  bears  you  across  the  desert,  at 
Haifa,  or  at  Syene,  which  now  is  Assuan,  was  the  last 
outpost  of  Europe  and  Asia,  the  final  vedette  of  civilisa- 
tion. The  level  sun  flamed  across  the  waste  of  sand  upon 
the  spearheads  of  Pharaoh's  mercenaries  and  the  hel- 
mets of  Roman  soldiers  as  it  did  upon  the  bayonets  of 
Kitchener's  sentries.  Beyond  the  frontier  camp  the  Nile 
wound  its  way  slowly  upwards  towards  the  Unknown, 
the  region  of  many  names  —  Cush,  Ethiopia,  Meroe, 
Napata,  where  only  vague  rumour  and  doubtful  travel- 
lers' tales  told  of  dim  kingdoms,  rising  and  falling,  and 
restless  tribes  of  untamable  savages. 

But  now  this  vast  realm  lies  open.  For  the  first 
time  in  its  history  it  is  in  full  touch  with  the  outer 
world.  When  British  generals  overthrew  the  Khalifa's 
hordes  they  did  more  than  merely  reconquer  the  Sudan 
for  Egypt :  they  conquered  it  in  a  sense  in  which 
conquest  had  never  been  effectual  here  before.  It  is 
true  that  previous  to  the  Mahdist  revolt  the  'Turks' 
ruled  all  through  the  Sudan,  even  to  the  Equator  on 
the  south  and  to  the  farthest  borders  of  Darfur  on  the 
west.  But,  though  Egyptian  officials  took  heavy  toll 
from  the  natives,  and  though  Egyptian  and  Turkish 
soldiers  lived  (and  plundered)  all  over  the  provinces, 
the  country  remained  inaccessible,  remote,  and  inhos- 
pitable. For  those  who  were  not  officials  or  emissaries 
of  the  Government,  the  journey  into  it  was  difficult, 
and   even   dangerous ;    for  all   it  was  long  and  slow. 


THE    DESERT   TRAIN  3 

Now  the  neat  and  well-appointed  express  boats  of  the 
Sudan  Government  service  float  you  smoothly  up  to 
Haifa  in  the  extreme  of  comfort.  And  at  Haifa  you 
transfer  yourself  and  your  baggage  to  the  train,  which 
is  also  run  by  the  Sudan  authorities,  with  no  greater 
trouble  than  you  would  experience  at  Clapham  Junc- 
tion. You  will  make  your  first  acquaintance  with  the 
realms  of  Queen  Candace  through  the  windows  of  a 
fine  dining-room  car.  You  enter  the  barrier  desert 
to  the  whistle  of  a  locomotive  that  will  roll  you  up  to 
the  capital  of  North  Central  Africa  in  a  night  and  a 
day  of  luxurious  travel.  It  is  a  very  simple  business 
to  get  to  Khartum  nowadays.  You  can  book  through 
from  Charing-Cross  if  you  please,  and  the  worst  ad- 
venture that  need  befall  you  on  the  way  will  be  a  bad 
Channel  crossing  or  an  inadequate  luncheon  at  a  rail- 
way buffet.  Measured  by  time  of  transit,  which  is  the 
only  practical  method  of  calculating  distances,  Om- 
durman  is  nearer  Piccadilly  than  Inverness  when 
George  III  was  King,  or  Venice  when  Charles  Dickens 
discovered  Italy.  Eight  days  and  a  half  from  door  to 
door  —  from  the  Thames  to  the  Blue  Nile.  'Good 
going  !'  said  an  officer  who  went  up  with  Kitchener  in 
'98.  'It  took  us  three  years  to  do  the  same  journey 
the  first  time  we  tried  it.  But  we  didn't  happen  to  have 
a  railway  ready  for  us  then.  We  had  to  build  it  as  we 
went  along  —  and  fight  a  battle  every  few  months 
while  we  were  doing  that.' 

Yet,  despite  the  tourist  agents  and   the   steamship 


4  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

companies  and  the  railways,  there  is  still  some  vague- 
ness, outside  the  ranks  of  the  regular  Egyptian  holiday 
crowd,  as  to  where  and  what  the  Sudan  is.  A  lady, 
the  wife  of  a  high  official  in  Khartum,  tells  me  that  her 
friends  at  home  seem  divided  in  opinion  as  to  whether 
the  town  is  a  sort  of  suburb  of  Cairo  or  a  section  of 
Wildest  Africa.  'How  awful  for  you  to  have  to  live 
in  a  place  like  that,  my  dear!'  says  one  sympathiser. 
'I  suppose  you  hardly  see  a  civilised  human  being 
from  one  year's  end  to  another.'  And  another  will 
write  in  this  strain:  'Young  Blank,  you  know,  my 
husband's  second  cousin,  has  gone  to  Cairo.  Such  a 
nice  boy  —  do,  please,  ask  him  to  come  out  and  have 
tea  with  you  one  afternoon.' 

Let  us  hope  these  intelligent  geographical  conceptions 
are  not  widely  diffused ;  though  we  Britons,  unless 
we  have  business  or  social  relations  with  any  particular 
part  even  of  our  own  dominions,  are  apt  to  be  curiously 
ignorant  of  it.  I  doubt,  at  any  rate,  whether  many  of 
us  have  grasped  the  real  and  astonishing  truth  about 
the  last  great  Empire  over  which  the  flag  of  Britain 
flies.  Do  we  all  know,  for  instance,  that  here,  alone  on 
the  earth,  that  ensign  floats  alongside  another  ?  The 
Sudan  is  under  Two  Flags  :  on  all  the  public  buildings, 
on  the  barracks,  the  Government  steamers,  the  police 
stations,  the  palaces,  the  post  offices,  at  a  review  of 
troops,  you  look  aloft  and  see  two  flagstaffs  —  the  White 
Crescent  of  Egypt  waves  from  the  one,  the  Union  Jack 
crackles    jauntily    from    the    other.     Through   all  the 


THE    DESERT   TRAIN  5 

length  of  the  Nile,  from  Uganda  to  the  Mediterranean, 
England  is  in  partnership  with  the  Khedivial  Govern- 
ment. -In  Egypt  it  is  a  relation  somewhat  veiled  and 
not  formally  admitted,  though  real  enough ;  in  the 
Sudan,  though  Britain  is,  beyond  question,  the  pre- 
dominant partner,  the  joint  rights  of  Egypt  —  itself 
nominally  still  a  Turkish  province  —  are  carefully 
asserted.  It  is  a  curious  situation,  of  which  more 
anon.  Meanwhile,  let  us  not  forget  that  we  are  deal- 
ing with  a  condominium  of  a  very  remarkable  and 
novel  kind.  The  Anglo-Egyptian  Sudan  is  a  political 
entity  such  as  does  not  exist  anywhere  else  on  earth, 
such  as  never  has  existed  in  this  precise  shape  so  far  as 
we  know.  We  have  here  something  exceptional  and 
unique,  whereof  the  two  flags  that  greet  us  before  we 
enter  the  train  at  Haifa  are  the  striking  symbol.  There 
is  the  record  of  many  stirring  chapters  of  history,  of 
the  epitaph  of  many  brave  men's  lives  —  black,  brown, 
and  white  —  in  those  two  tall  masts  and  those  squares 
of  bunting  flapping  in  the  dusty  desert  breeze. 

That  is  one  of  the  things  that  perhaps  everybody 
does  not  grasp  touching  the  Sudan.  There  are  some 
others.  Is  it  commonly  understood  that  this  territory, 
which  has  been  added  to  the  sphere  of  British  interest 
during  the  past  fifteen  years,  is  enormous  in  extent  and 
immense  in  its  potential,  if  not  its  actual,  resources  ? 
It  is  twelve  hundred  miles  long  and  a  thousand  miles 
wide,  and  it  has  an  area  of  a  million  square  miles  — 
two-thirds  the  size  of  India,  larger  than  Great  Britain, 


6  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

France,  Germany,  and  Austria  together.  One  prov- 
ince alone  would  hold  Spain  comfortably  and  have  room 
to  spare.  Nor  are  these  vast  spaces  mere  waste  tracts, 
empty  squares,  such  as  used  to  be  left  blank  on  those 
old  maps  of  Africa  which  are  still  too  often  reproduced 
in  our  modern  atlases.  There  is  plenty  of  swamp, 
scrub,  and  desert  in  the  Sudan.  But  there  is  also  a 
large  amount  which  is  actually  rich  and  fertile,  and  a 
still  larger  amount  which,  under  certain  conditions, 
such  as  we  are  now  beginning  to  apply,  might  be  made 
so.  The  population  of  the  whole  territory  is  esti- 
mated at  little  more  than  three  millions.  But  this 
is  due  to  temporary  causes  which  we  have  now  elim- 
inated. That  is  to  say,  to  the  ruin  and  havoc  wrought 
by  Mahdism.  The  Sudan  has  in  former  times  sup- 
ported a  large  number  of  inhabitants,  it  was  even  the 
seat  of  populous  civilised  communities,  and  it  may 
become  so  again.  It  is  no  Sahara  into  which  we  are 
bringing  the  light,  but  a  country  of  great,  though 
unequal,  possibilities  worth  developing  and  cultivating. 
Different  views  are  taken  of  the  Sudan  by  those  who 
may  be  called  Sudan  experts ;  there  are  few  who  do 
not  hold  that,  in  parts  at  least,  it  will  be  more  than 
worth  the  pains  that  are  being  taken  by  a  small  knot  of 
Englishmen,  assisted  by  a  competent  body  of  Egyp- 
tians and  natives,  to  bring  it  into  prosperity.  The 
task  will  be  long  and  difficult :  none  more  worthy  and 
arduous  has  been  undertaken  by  Englishmen  of  our 
generation. 


THE   DESERT   TRAIN  7 

You  get  some  glimmering  of  it  as  you  travel  in  the 
desert  train,  which  bridges  the  stretch  of  utter  barren- 
ness that  fends  Egypt  from  the  south.  This  railway 
was,  indeed,  the  beginning  of  the  work  which  rendered 
the  rest  possible.  At  Haifa  the  Nile  bends  in  a  mighty 
loop  to  the  west,  and  then  turns  north  again  before 
it  resumes  its  proper  southward  course  at  Abu  Hamed. 
Wolseley,  in  1884,  took  the  long  and  tedious  way  round 
the  bend  and  over  the  two  cataracts  it  passes.  Kitch- 
ener, in  1898,  determined  to  take  the  short  cut  across 
the  230  miles  of  desert.  And  such  desert !  Africa, 
the  world,  has  scarcely  its  equal.  Treeless,  waterless, 
lifeless,  it  glistens  on  either  side  —  a  sea  of  dead  sand 
that  washes  to  the  base  of  scarred  hills,  without  a  leaf, 
a  patch  of  green,  the  twinkle  of  a  mountain  torrent. 
Through  this  ruined  wilderness,  in  the  heat  of  a  tropical 
summer,  Girouard's  men  made  the  track,  laid  the 
sleepers,  and  spiked  down  the  rails  at  racing  pace,  one 
gang  ahead  preparing  the  way  for  the  next  as  it  came 
along.  Between  that  fiery  May  and  that  fierce  Decem- 
ber the  young  Canadian  lieutenant  of  engineers  got 
the  road  begun  and  finished  —  never  less  than  a  mile  of 
rails  laid  in  a  day,  sometimes  three  miles.  Often  as 
you  have  read  of  that  wonderful  achievement,  it  is  not 
till  you  are  looking  from  the  windows  of  the  desert 
train  that  you  comprehend  its  full  meaning.  Even  in 
December,  with  all  the  comforts  of  the  train  de  luxe, 
wicker  chairs,  iced  drinks,  smoked  glass  panes,  and 
lattice  shutters  —  you  gasp  at  the  heat  and  cough  with 


8  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

the  dust.  The  glare  of  the  level  yellow  plain  makes 
your  eyes  ache ;  you  are  glad  when  a  mirage  comes  to 
rest  them,  so  that  the  jagged  rocks  on  the  horizon  seem 
floating  in  sheets  of  cool  white  water  and  the  fronds 
of  delusive  palms  wave  mockingly  on  the  horizon  line. 
And  you  may  think  of  the  men  working  against  time 
there  in  the  open,  not  in  the  winter,  but  in  July  — 
think  what  the  dust,  and  the  furious  sun,  and  the 
burning  sand,  and  even  the  cruel  irony  of  the  mirage, 
must  have  been  to  them.  At  Abu  Hamed,  where  the 
Nile  is  touched  again  and  there  are  groves  and  fields, 
you  slip  comfortably  into  a  well-kept  bath  they 
have  ready  for  you  at  the  railway  station,  and  with 
soap  and  hot  water  wash  ofF  the  desert  dust  and  go 
back  to  your  car,  refreshed  and  clean,  for  breakfast. 
And  then  you  glide  past  Berber,  where  roofless  mud 
houses  still  tell  of  the  ruin  wrought  by  the  dervishes 
before  we  came  to  stay  the  devastation,  over  the 
great  iron  bridge  across  the  Atbara,  and  the  branch 
line  to  the  Red  Sea  coast  which  Girouard's  successors 
have  built ;  along  the  river,  past  Shendy  and  Metem- 
meh  and  in  sight  of  that  other  desert  of  the  Nile  bend 
which  our  men  trod  wearily  in  the  fruitless  advance 
that  came  too  late  to  save  Gordon.  The  sun  has  set, 
and  the  pall  of  the  tropical  evening  rests  darkly  on  the 
land,  as  your  journey  ends  at  the  railway  station  of 
Khartum. 


CHAPTER  II 

A  CITY  OF  ROMANCE 

Khartum  ! 

It  is  a  name  which  many  Englishmen  cannot  hear, 
even  when  it  is  prosaically  called  at  a  railway  station, 
without  a  certain  thrill.  To  some,  indeed,  of  my  fellow- 
travellers  who  arrived  with  me  by  the  desert  train  that 
dark,  warm  evening  in  December,  it  may  have  meant 
little.  'Also  sind  wir  zuletzt  am  Ende  !'  says  the  stout 
German,  who  has  been  grumbling  and  perspiring  for 
many  hours.  For  him,  coming  into  the  Sudan  with 
strictly  commercial  aims,  Khartum  is  only  a  town  like 
any  other.  So  it  is  to  the  American  lady  tourist,  under 
the  disc  of  a  vast  white  felt  helmet  and  a  blue  veil  like 
a  mosquito-curtain  ;  to  the  good-looking  young  Briton, 
bound  for  Gondokoro  and  the  pursuit  of  big  game,  it 
is  merely  the  starting-point  of  a  sporting  expedition ; 
to  the  bimbashi  of  a  Sudanese  battalion  going  back 
to  duty  after  his  three  months'  leave  it  means  another 
spell  of  hard,  hot,  dusty  toil  before  the  moist  greenness 
of  'home'  can  be  felt  again.  The  aliens  have  no  part 
in  the  associations  that  gather  round  the  spot  where 
the  two  Niles  join.  The  youngsters  were  not  old 
enough  to  share  in  the  long  tension  of  that  unavailing 
march  which  ended  in  futility  and  retreat;    they  were 

9 


io  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

only  schoolboys  during  the  progress  of  the  later  vic- 
torious expedition  which  avenged  the  failure.  So  many 
things  have  happened  since  Stewart  fell  at  Abu  Klea 
and  Wilson  took  the  Bordein  under  a  rain  of  bullets 
past  the  swarming  walls  of  Omdurman  :  many  things 
since  Wauchope's  Highlanders  and  Hector  Macdpnald's 
Sudanese  mowed  down  the  Khalifa's  dervishes  at 
Kerreri.  Nations  have  risen  and  fallen  since  then : 
great  armies  have  fought  greater  battles.  No  wonder 
the  story  of  Khartum  has  waxed  dim. 

But  to  those  who  lived  through  it,  who  followed  at  a 
distance  the  whole  strange  dramatic  series  which  began 
with  the  massacre  of  Hicks  Pasha's  hapless  regiments 
and  ended  with  the  death  of  Abdullah  the  Khalifa, 
it  must  be  a  romance  merely  to  breathe  the  air  of 
Khartum.  The  very  names  of  things  and  places  recall 
events  which  once  stirred  us  to  the  marrow  with  hope, 
or  fear,  or  anger,  or  suspense.  As  I  traced  our  route 
on  the  railway  by  the  guide-book  the  long-forgotten 
geography  of  the  Sudan  came  back  to  me.  How  well 
all  England  knew  it  once.  How  they  used  to  pore 
over  the  maps  behind  windows  lurid  with  the  London 
fog,  till  Dongola  and  Berber,  and  Korti  and  Metem- 
meh,  the  Atbara,  and  Abu  Hamed,  were  burned  into 
our  memory.  I  saw  Safiyeh  herself  in  that  brisk  little 
dockyard  —  a  Portsmouth  in  miniature  —  where  a 
captain  of  the  British  Navy  builds  boats  and  repairs 
engines  and  keeps  the  Sudan  Government's  flotilla  in 
order.     A  battered,  empty,  mastless,  and  unfunnelled 


A    CITY   OF    ROMANCE  n 

hulk  was  the  famous  Thames  penny  steamer  which 
went  through  such  vicissitudes  in  her  heroic  day.  A 
mere  shell  of  shabby  planking ;  but  to  set  foot  on  the 
poor  old  lighter  is  to  recall  the  breathless  nights  spent 
when  the  tale  was  being  told  in  England  of  the  gallant 
dash  to  save  Gordon  at  the  last,  of  the  rush  up  the 
Nile,  of  the  mending  of  the  boiler  under  the  dervish 
fire,  of  all  the  desperate  efforts  that  came  too  late. 
After  Lord  Charles  Beresford  had  used  the  little  steamer 
to  rescue  Sir  Charles  Wilson's  party  from  a  very  per- 
ilous position  she  fell  into  the  Khalifa's  hands  again; 
thirteen  years  later  Lord  Kitchener's  gunboats  re- 
captured her,  in  the  course  of  that  hurried  expedition 
up  the  White  Nile  to  settle  matters  with  Captain  Mar- 
chand  at  Fashoda.  What  things  she  has  seen,  that 
dishevelled  Safiyeh  !  If  her  mouldering  timbers  could 
speak,  they  could  tell  some  tales  worth  hearing. 

It  is  one  of  the  romances  of  Khartum ;  but  all 
Khartum  is  a  romance.  Its  wide  streets,  its  forts  and 
barracks  and  palaces,  its  groves  and  gardens,  its  mud- 
walled  suburb  villages,  its  two  great  confluent  rivers, 
the  dusty  plain  that  stretches  round  it  to  the  hard  blue 
sky,  bear  witness  to  a  chapter  of  history  none  the  less 
marvellous  because  it  is  recent.  A  generation  ago  the 
whole  vast  Sudan  was  a  sort  of  outlying  Turkey.  The 
'Turk'  misruled  in  calm  insouciance ;  Egyptian  pasha- 
dom  buttoned  its  frock  coat  round  its  pockets  at 
Khartum,  and  shared  its  gains  grudgingly  with  official- 
ism at  Cairo ;    Egyptian  conscripts  kept  guard  sulkily 


12  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

in  the  provinces,  dreaming  of  the  wheatfields  and  water- 
meadows  they  would  never  see  again ;  the  slave  trade 
went  on  briskly  under  the  eyes  of  plundering  ruffianism 
which  took  toll  of  the  grain  and  ivory,  the  gum  and 
the  women,  in  the  name  of  the  Khedive.  The  empire 
which  Mehemet  Ali  founded  seemed  no  more  evanes- 
cent than  many  others  in  the  East :  it  was  abominable 
barbarism  at  bottom,  but  it  had  the  externals  of  civili- 
sation. The  telegraph  wire  went  striding  down  to  the 
Equator;  military  bands  were  playing  Austrian  dance 
music  outside  the  officers'  messes  at  Wadelai  and  Lado. 
Who  could  imagine  that  raiding  Arabs  and  tribes  of 
African  blacks  could  overturn  all  this  elaborate  edifice  ? 
But  it  collapsed,  so  to  speak,  in  a  night.  A  strange 
magnetic  impulse  brought  these  scattered,  helpless, 
peoples  together  about  Mohammed  Ahmed,  the  Mahdi, 
and  Egyptian  rule  shrivelled  up  in  a  blast  of  flame. 
Few  things  are  more  remarkable  in  their  way  than  this 
swift  linking  up  of  an  oppressed  heterogeneous  popula- 
tion by  the  bond  of  a  common  Islamism ;  few  more 
deplorable  than  the  ruin  and  desolation  that  followed 
the  coming  of  the  Dongola  Messiah. 

It  was  a  reproduction  of  those  convulsions  and  cata- 
clysms, of  those  displacements  and  migrations  and 
colossal  butcheries,  we  see  moving  dimly  through  the 
darkness  of  past  centuries  in  the  pages  of  Gibbon. 
We  had  it  under  our  eyes ;  we  have  the  results,  the 
survivals,  before  us  in  Khartum  to-day,  and  in  Omdur- 
man.     The  towns  are  full  of  memorials  of  that  brief 


A   CITY   OF    ROMANCE  13 

crusading  fury  of  Moslem  puritanism,  of  the  long  carni- 
val of  blood  and  rapine  that  followed,  of  the  heroic 
struggles  to  stem  the  tide,  of  the  final,  disciplined,  de- 
liberate effort  to  beat  it  back,  of  the  steady,  successful 
labour  to  repair  the  ravages.  We  have  forgotten  much 
of  the  story.  We  live  too  fast  in  these  days  to  keep 
our  memories  green.  But  in  the  Sudan  capital  it  is 
not  easy  to  forget :  the  associations  of  that  stirring 
recent  past  are  before  you  everywhere.  Even  the 
tourist  cannot  miss  all  of  them. 

You  may  go  out  to  the  battlefield  of  Omdurman  — 
which  here  they  call  Kerreri  —  with  one  of  Mr.  Cook's 
dragomans,  or,  as  I  did,  with  a  native  officer  who  had 
been  through  the  fight,  and  hear  over  again  the  details 
of  Kitchener's  great  victory.  Not  long  ago  the  ground 
was  all  white  with  unburied  skeletons,  and  dervish 
skulls,  and  even  dervish  jibbahs  and  spears  were  to  be 
had  at  will.  Now  most  of  these  relics  have  gone,  and, 
though  there  are  a  few  dry  bones  lying  conspicuously 
in  the  sunshine,  there  is  some  doubt  whether  they  are 
not  the  mortal  remains  of  camels  and  oxen,  thoughtfully 
placed  in  situ  by  the  donkey-boys  for  the  benefit 
of  inquisitive  and  acquisitive  visitors.  Perhaps  there 
is  no  more  reliance  to  be  placed  on  the  testimony  of 
the  donkey-boy  himself,  who,  on  being  questioned,  will 
tell  you  that  he  was  himself  in  the  battle.  He  was  a 
Sudanese  slave  of  the  Baggara,  he  says,  who  was  given 
a  gun  and  taken  into  the  fight,  and  crawled  away 
wounded  (he  shows  you  a  conspicuous  scar)  to  Omdur- 


i4  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

man  when  it  was  over.  You  supply  him  with  piastres 
and  receive  his  story  with  due  scepticism.  Yet  it  may 
be  true.  Khartum  and  Omdurman  are  full  of  the 
living  remnants  of  Mahdist  triumph  and  Mahdist 
oppression,  now  engaged  in  quite  peaceful  avocations. 

In  that  Government  dockyard  I  have  mentioned  I 
noticed  a  little  old  man  with  a  shrewd,  bronzed,  semi- 
European  face  and  an  iron-grey  moustache,  working 
assiduously  at  a  drilling  machine.  He  was  a  Cypriote, 
and  was  a  mechanic  in  the  Government  arsenal  when  the 
Mahdists  came.  Skilled  artisans  being  wanted,  his 
life  was  spared ;  after  a  disciplinary  interval  of  chains 
and  prison,  they  set  him  to  labour  in  the  Khalifa's 
workshops,  and  there  we  found  him  when  we  took  over 
the  plant  and  business.  Now  he  drills  and  hammers 
for  the  Sudan  Government,  and  gets  his  wages  regu- 
larly, which  was  an  advantage  he  did  not  enjoy  when 
he  was  drilling  and  hammering  either  for  the  Khedive 
or  the  Khalifa.  He  had  to  become  a  Mohammedan, 
and  they  gave  him  a  forlorn  captive  negress  (nominally 
a  Mohammedan  too)  as  a  wife.  I  did  not  ascertain 
what  had  become  of  the  lady ;  but  the  man  himself 
has  reverted  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers. 

People  had  strange  religious  as  well  as  matrimonial 
experiences  in  the  Sudan  while  the  Khalifa  ruled  and 
since.  There  is,  for  example,  Signora  X,  who  now 
presides  over  the  household  of  an  Italian  tailor  in 
Khartum.  I  became  acquainted  with  this  artist  in  the 
course  of  an  attempt  to  get  certain  ink  stains,  pro- 


A    CITY   OF    ROMANCE  15 

duced  by  an  erring  stylographic  pen,  removed  from 
my  trousers.  In  the  temporary  absence  of  her  hus- 
band the  Signora  confided  to  me  portions  of  her  bi- 
ography. She  was  born  in  Marseilles,  and  came  to 
Egypt  in  the  flower  of  her  youth  as  a  governess  in  a 
family  of  position,  where  her  charms  captivated  an 
officer  of  rank  in  the  Khedive's  forces,  who  married 
her.  Here  I  think  she  must  have  embroidered  a  little ; 
I  suspect  she  was  only  a  lady's  maid  and  her  husband 
no  more  than  a  corporal.  She  followed  this  warrior 
to  the  Sudan,  and  was  herded  into  the  compound  at 
Omdurman,  in  which  they  placed  all  the  women  young 
enough  to  be  worth  keeping,  the  day  after  the  taking  of 
Khartum.  One  of  the  Mahdi's  fighting  Emirs  claimed 
her  as  the  prize  of  war,  and  proposed  to  add  her  to  his 
harem ;  but  she  contrived  to  appeal  to  the  Mahdi, 
who  had  decreed  that  European  women  with  resident 
husbands  should  not  be  made  over  to  Moslems.  Un- 
happily the  Signora's  Egyptian  spouse  had  disappeared, 
having  been  no  doubt  killed ;  but  one  of  the  brothers 
of  the  Austrian  mission  kindly  allowed  her  to  become 
his  wife  pro  forma,  and  this  situation  subsisted  during 
the  Khalifa te.  After  1898  the  proper  ecclesiastical 
steps  were  taken  to  annul  the  nominal  union,  and  she 
joined  her  fortunes  with  those  of  the  Italian  tailor, 
whom  death  had  relieved  of  a  Sudanese  wife  imposed 
upon  him  (deeply  against  his  will,  the  Signora  averred) 
during  his  days  of  servitude  and  Mohammedanism. 
Or,  again,  you  ask  a  question  concerning  the  pleasant- 


16  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

faced  native  'boy'  who  ministers  to  you  when  you 
are  lunching  at  a  friend's  table.  Your  host  requests 
Abdullah  to  tell  his  story.  He  does  so,  and  you  learn 
that  his  father  was  a  Baggara  Arab,  that  he  was  taken 
young  to  be  water-bearer  to  the  Khalifa  himself,  that 
he  was  captured  by  Sir  Reginald  Wingate's  men  not 
far  from  his  master  in  the  last  fight  of  all,  when  the 
Pretender  and  his  chosen  lieutenants  perished.  They 
took  the  boy  and  sent  him  to  school  in  Khartum ;  and 
now  he  deftly  pours  soda-water  for  the  unbeliever,  as 
though  no  weapon  more  lethal  than  a  corkscrew  had 
ever  swum  into  his  ken. 

There  are  other  and  sadder  memorials.  In  the 
beautiful  new  palace  of  the  Sirdar,  which  has  risen  from 
the  ruins  of  the  old  one,  they  take  you  into  a  ground 
floor  corridor,  on  the  walls  of  which  is  the  tablet : 
iHere  Gordon  died?  The  palace  is  built  on  the  site 
of  its  predecessor,  though  its  plan  and  arrangement  are 
different,  and  the  actual  staircase  on  which  the  hero 
fell  has  disappeared.  But  a  little  above  the  spot  is  a 
new  staircase,  sweeping  up  in  a  handsome  curve  from 
the  gardens  to  the  broad  verandah  on  the  first  floor, 
on  which  the  principal  rooms  of  the  present  residence 
open.  As  we  stand  on  the  second  step  we  must  be 
very  near  the  actual  space  in  which  the  tragedy  occurred 
on  that  night  in  February  1885,  when  the  dervish  horde, 
fifty  thousand  strong,  made  its  final  swoop  upon  Gor- 
don's disheartened,  decimated,  famished  garrison  cower- 
ing behind   its   ineffective  walls.     With  one   rush   the 


A    CITY   OF    ROMANCE  17 

feeble  ramparts  were  carried  and  the  Mahdists  were 
slaughtering  the  Egyptians  like  sheep.  Gordon  had 
gone  up  to  the  roof  of  the  palace,  where  day  after  day 
he  had  watched  for  some  sign  of  that  belated,  slow- 
moving  army,  whose  advance  guard,  after  its  boggling 
with  the  sands  and  the  cataracts,  was  even  then  so 
close.  Seeing  that  all  was  over  he  put  on  his  Pasha's 
uniform,  girded  on  his  sword,  and  calmly  stood  at  the 
head  of  the  staircase  awaiting  what  should  befall. 
Through  the  palace  grounds,  trampling  over  his  own 
flower-beds  and  rose-bushes,  came  the  shrieking  fa- 
natics, brandishing  their  great  spears. 

The  Mahdi,  it  is  said,  had  given  orders  to  spare  him ; 
alive  Gordon  was  worth  more  than  dead.  But  the 
howling  mob,  maddened  by  their  orgy  of  blood,  did 
not  stop  to  answer  the  hero's  disdainful  challenge. 
They  threw  themselves  upon  him ;  pike  and  two- 
handed  sword  stabbed  and  hewed ;  the  head  was  cut 
off  and  the  body  was  hacked  to  pieces,  there,  on  the 
blood-stained  steps,  close  by  where  we  stand.  Some- 
body tells  the  story  again  in  quiet  tones ;  before  us  lie 
the  lawns  and  rustling  sycamores  of  the  gardens,  sleep- 
ing under  the  silver  rain  of  the  southern  stars  ;  behind 
us  the  broad,  lamp-lit  terrace,  where  gay  little  after- 
dinner  groups  of  men  and  women  are  chatting  and 
laughing.  It  is  one  of  those  contrasts  between  the 
present  and  a  past  so  little  remote  that  we  seem  to 
touch  it  with  our  hands,  which  make  your  first  few 
days  in  Khartum  so  like  a  dream. 


18  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Indeed,  as  I  look  back  upon  those  days  my  mind 
retains  a  mingled  impression  of  scenes  and  memories 
almost  equally  vivid  :  of  a  beautiful  city,  green  and 
white  in  the  midst  of  the  grey  desert  dust;  of  sunset 
in  a  superb  pageant  of  rose  and  lemon,  yellow  and 
violet,  glowing  upon  great  lake-like  reaches  of  gleaming 
water ;  of  pleasant  villas  set  back  behind  trees  and 
flowers  ;  of  date  palms  bending  their  gracious  heads 
above  the  golden  bells  of  the  tocoma  and  the  crim- 
son clusters  of  the  poinsettias ;  of  a  busy  bazaar  and 
market  full  of  cheerful,  laughing  negroes  and  lithe 
brown  Arabs,  keen-eyed  and  straight ;  of  stalwart 
Sudanese  soldiers  in  white  uniforms  and  Egyptians  in 
khaki,  disciplined  and  respectful ;  of  many  Englishmen 
and  a  few  Englishwomen,  all  young,  all  well-dressed, 
apparently  all  good-looking ;  of  a  whole  world  of  active, 
vigorous  life,  moving  upon  a  background  of  shadows. 
Such  was  my  vision  of  Khartum,  as  I  came  to  it  at  first, 
haunted  by  those  memories  from  which  Khartum  itself 
has  emerged.  For  it  is  only  the  sentimental  traveller 
who  has  time  to  indulge  in  retrospective  meditation 
here.  Khartum  does  not  meditate  over  the  past. 
It  is  far  too  well  occupied  with  the  present  and  the 
future. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  GROWING  OF   KHARTUM 

Your  first  emotion  over  Khartum  yields  to  a  senti- 
ment of  surprise  as  you  begin  to  look  around  you,  a 
surprise  abundantly  justified  when  you  recall  the  recent 
history  of  the  place.  Fifteen  years  ago,  when  it  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  victors  of  Kerreri,  Khartum  was 
a  heap  of  ruin  and  rubbish.  Founded  by  Mehemet 
Ali  in  1834,  it  had  been  a  town  of  some  importance  and 
pretension  as  the  centre  of  Egyptian  rule  in  the  Sudan. 
For  that  reason,  as  soon  as  Mohammed  Ahmed,  the 
Mahdi,  got  possession  of  the  town  he  set  about  to 
destroy  it  utterly.  The  public  buildings  were  burned, 
the  private  dwellings,  mostly  of  mud,  were  dismantled, 
the  inhabitants,  or  such  of  them  as  had  escaped 
massacre,  were  commanded  to  transfer  themselves  to 
Omdurman,  some  three  miles  away  on  the  opposite 
bank  of  the  Nile.  This  village  became  an  immense 
human  warren,  and,  under  the  Khalifa,  it  was  pretty 
nearly  the  largest  town,  measured  by  population,  in 
all  Africa.  Within  sight  of  its  festering  alleys  Khartum 
crumbled  to  dust  in  the  sun.  When  Kitchener  entered 
it,  on  September  3,  1898,  to  hold  the  funeral  service 
over  Gordon  and  hoist  the  Two  Flags  on  a  wrecked 
battlement  of  Gordon's  Palace,  it  was  lifeless  and 
vacant.     An  entirely  new  city  had  to  be  created. 

19 


20  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

So  far  this  was  an  advantage.  The  builders  had 
no  hampering  vestiges  of  the  past  to  deal  with.  They 
were  not  encumbered  by  the  hopeless  ground-plan 
of  an  Eastern  town,  nor  were  their  efforts  after  light 
and  sanitation  thwarted  by  the  existence  of  a  nest  of 
twisting  lanes  and  interlocking  courts.  They  could 
start  fair  and  lay  out  their  streets  and  open  spaces 
with  a  mathematical  symmetry  for  which  municipal 
reformers  at  home  sigh  in  vain.  This  is  typical  of 
much  else  in  the  Sudan.  Its  administrators  are  more 
fortunate  than  those  who  are  concerned  with  countries 
thickly  grown  over  with  the  tradition  and  inheritance 
of  the  past,  such,  for  instance,  as  India  and  Egypt. 
War  and  revolution  had  cleared  the  ground  for  them, 
and  they  could  lay  their  own  foundations  and  work 
from  them.  Khartum  reveals  the  results  of  a  bold  and 
far-sighted  ambition.  Its  second  founders  were  con- 
vinced from  the  outset  that  they  were  the  holders  of 
no  mean  city.  Though  it  is  so  new  and  young,  it 
bears  the  aspect  of  a  capital ;  it  seems  to  be  preparing 
itself  for  a  great  future.  I  confess  that  when  I  con- 
sidered the  situation  of  Khartum,  and  the  swiftness 
with  which  it  had  sprung  up  out  of  the  dust  of  its  own 
decay,  I  expected  to  find  it  makeshift  and  provisional. 
I  figured  it  to  myself  as  a  sort  of  frontier  camp,  or, 
at  the  best,  like  some  of  the  civil  stations  in  India 
where  everything  has  a  hasty  appearance,  as  if  prepared 
for  people  who  are  not  life-long  residents,  but  only 
temporary  sojourners  under  alien  stars.     But  there  is 


THE  GROWING  OF  KHARTUM     21 

nothing  of  that  transient  feeling  about  Khartum ;  it 
has  no  rawness,  despite  its  youth,  and,  though  still 
unfinished,  it  has  a  settled  air,  as  if  it  were  the  work  of 
men  who  realised  that  they  were  planning  for  the  future. 
It  lies  in  the  midst  of  a  brown  and  yellow  wilderness, 
which  we  do  wrong  to  call  desert,  since  it  needs  but 
water  to  reclothe  it  with  a  garment  of  verdure.  The 
water  is  there  in  the  two  mighty  rivers  —  the  Blue 
Nile,  blue  with  the  scour  from  the  Abyssinian  hills, 
and  the  White  Nile,  whitened  by  the  flood  from  the 
lakes  of  the  Equator  —  that  mingle  their  streams  at 
this  point.  The  water  is  there,  but  it  is  not  easy,  for 
political  and  other  reasons,  to  filter  it  over  this  thirsty 
land.  The  city  of  Khartum,  however,  is  allowed  to 
take  its  toll,  and  it  shows  the  result  in  a  wealth  of 
greenery,  of  bloom  and  foliage,  and  rustling  branch, 
which  delight  the  tired  senses  after  the  glare  and 
barrenness  of  the  long,  hot  journey  from  the  north. 
All  along  the  river  front  and  in  the  gardens  behind  it, 
and  especially  in  those  of  the  Palace,  the  slender,  wil- 
lowy date  palms  bow  their  stately  heads  like  tall  young 
princesses,  as  if  in  acknowledgment  of  the  nosegays 
of  red  and  yellow  blossoms,  which  the  parkinsonia, 
the  poinsettia,  the  mustard  tree,  the  sisiban,  the  flower- 
ing thorn  of  the  Sudan,  and  other  lesser  shrubs  toss  to 
their  knees.  The  streets  have  been  planned,  as  I  have 
said,  with  a  generous  amplitude,  and,  though  there  are 
many  vacant  spaces  in  them  still,  they  give  promise 
of   becoming   handsome    boulevards    with    time.     En- 


22  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

terprising  Greeks  and  venturous  Italians  have  estab- 
lished thriving  shops,  which  give  to  the  main  thorough- 
fares a  busy  and  mercantile  appearance. 

Behind  these  streets  is  the  quarter  of  the  natives,  and 
it  is  a  native  quarter  cleaned,  regulated,  and  deodorised. 
The  houses  are  of  mud  or  mud  bricks,  like  those  of 
Egypt,  but  they  are  spaced  out  with  a  vigilant  regard 
to  sanitation  and  a  conscientious  neglect  of  their 
owners'  feelings  on  the  accumulation  and  disposition 
of  superfluous  dirt.  In  this  part  the  Government, 
mindful  of  the  spiritual  needs  of  its  subjects,  has  built 
a  handsome  mosque,  and,  careful  of  their  material 
wants,  it  has  provided  a  great  market,  where  are  rows 
of  booths  and  shanties,  and  where  camels  and  donkeys, 
tinpots  and  native  damur  cottons,  and  many  other 
vendable  things,  are  bought  and  sold  under  the  strict 
supervision  of  certain  Coptic  and  Egyptian  clerks 
accountable  to  the  mudiryeh,  which  is  the  provincial 
and  municipal  administration  combined.  Trade  is 
brisk  and  varied.  I  saw  a  stall  largely  devoted  to 
the  sale  of  braces,  though  I  cannot  conjecture  the  use 
of  those  articles  to  people  who  do  not  wear  trousers. 
To  the  tourist  who  visits  Khartum  this  market  is  a 
place  of  joyous  resort.  Here  to  his  heart's  content  he 
can  snapshot  such  subjects  as  he  will  not  find  during 
his  holidays  in  Egypt  —  negroes  lavishly  displaying 
limbs  of  polished  ebony,  fierce  Arab  tribesmen  hung 
round  with  cutting  weapons  who  have  driven  their 
gaunt,  striding,  desert  camels  from  far  up  the  country ; 


THE  GROWING  OF  KHARTUM     23 

giant  Shilluks  from  the  Upper  Nile ;  savages  of  all 
sorts  from  the  dark  recesses  of  Africa  towards  the  West 
Coast  and  the  Congo.  Women  are  numerous,  some 
in  veil  or  yashmak,  others  in  various  stages  of  semi- 
nudity  :  in  the  Northern  Sudan  there  are  still  more 
women  than  men,  thanks  to  the  activity  of  the  Khalifa 
in  killing  off  the  adult  male  population.  These  may 
be  the  reliquice  Danaum,  but  they  show  no  trace  of 
gloom.  They  are  a  cheerful,  good-tempered,  chatter- 
ing folk,  especially  the  Sudanese.  The  Arabs  are 
more  dignified  and  reserved,  and  in  their  brown  keen 
faces  and  the  easy  grace  of  their  walk  you  seem  to 
detect  something  of  the  manner  of  a  conquering,  direct- 
ing, race.  They  do  not  forget  that  they  used  to  be 
the  masters  and  the  negroes  their  servants.  'Who  are 
these  ?'  I  say  to  my  Arab  dragoman,  indicating  a 
group  of  negresses  squatting  round  open  trays  of  Indian 
corn  and  millet.  'Those  slave  women,  sah,'  replies 
Abdul,  with  scorn.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  not 
slave  women  now ;  but  a  few  years  ago  they  were. 
Many  thousands  such  were  found,  husbandless  and 
ownerless,  when  we  marched  into  Omdurman.  Many 
of  them  live  in  a  couple  of  native  villages  in  a  sort  of 
enclosure  or  reserve  just  outside  the  town  of  Khartum. 
Black  or  brown,  Semitic  or  negroid  in  blood,  these 
people  seem  to  have  an  excellent  understanding  with  the 
latest  rulers  whom  the  chances  of  history  have  imposed 
upon  them.  Furious  fighters  as  some  of  them  have 
been,  they  give  one  the  impression  of  a  docile,  easily- 


24  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

governed  folk.  Unless  all  appearances  belie  them 
they  both  like  and  respect  the  men  from  the  distant 
North  who  are  set  in  authority  over  them.  They 
are  'casual'  towards  the  Greeks,  familiar  rather  than 
friendly  with  the  Egyptians ;  but  towards  the  English 
their  demeanour  is  reverential.  When  a  native 
mounted  on  a  donkey  passes  an  English  gentleman  even 
in  the  streets  of  Khartum,  it  is  etiquette  for  him  to 
dismount  from  his  beast  and  salute ;  it  is  also  correct 
for  the  Briton  to  acknowledge  the  salutation  with 
punctilious  courtesy.  So  it  used  to  be  in  India  when 
there  were  only  sahibs  in  that  land,  and  in  Egypt,  too, 
I  believe,  in  the  pre-Cookian  days.  In  the  Sudan  even 
now  they  are  beginning  to  distinguish  between  the 
mere  tourist  and  the  important  official  resident  who 
wears  the  gilt  crescent  on  the  front  of  his  pith  helmet ; 
presently  the  European  may  find  himself  treated  as 
brusquely  by  brown  elbows  and  toes  as  he  is  in  the 
streets  of  Cairo  and  Bombay.  Meanwhile,  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Sudan  natives  are  still  in  the  unsophisti- 
cated stage ;  and  the  travelling  Briton,  who  is  less 
than  nobody  in  his  own  and  most  other  countries,  can 
taste  for  a  moment  the  unwonted  sensation  of  belonging 
to  a  superior  order  of  beings. 

The  good  manners  of  the  Sudanese  cannot,  I  think, 
be  set  down  to  our  credit ;  they  are  naturally  polite,  as, 
indeed,  are  most  of  the  Oriental  and  primitive  peoples. 
But  there  are  other  things  we  have  been  teaching  them 
during  the  past  twelve  years,  and  they  have  been  learn- 


THE   GROWING   OF    KHARTUM  25 

ing  their  lesson  with  gratifying  rapidity.  The  con- 
dominium of  England  and  Egypt  has  been  exhibited 
in  an  administrative  partnership.  The  official  hier- 
archy is  mixed ;  in  every  department  there  are  English 
chiefs,  with  native  subordinates,  from  somewhere 
down  the  Nile.  So  far,  work  requiring  some  intelli- 
gence, as  well  as  elementary  education,  has  had  to  be 
entrusted  to  the  Misraim,  the  Copts  and  Mohammedans 
from  the  north,  with  some  little  assistance  from  the 
handy  Greek,  the  useful  Syrian,  and  the  adaptive 
Armenian.  But  the  new  rulers  of  the  Sudan  hold  that 
its  own  population  should  be  enabled  to  provide  the 
requisite  skill  and  brains,  as  well  as  muscle,  without 
drawing  upon  an  alien  element,  which  is  not  altogether 
happy  in  these  tropical  regions,  and  often  stands 
the  climate  badly.  You  will  remember  —  Mr.  Kipling 
has  endeavoured  to  impress  it  upon  the  public  mind 
in  some  oft-quoted  verses  —  that  even  before  Lord 
Kitchener  had  completed  the  work  of  conquest  he  set 
about  the  task  of  education.  He  thought  that  as  we 
were  proposing  to  extinguish  the  staple  trade  of  the 
country,  which  was  fighting,  we  ought  to  create  a  few 
others.  So  his  lieutenants  and  coadjutors  set  to  work 
to  turn  the  Sudanese  into  efficient  members  of  a  pacific 
society.  The  children  of  the  Arab  warriors  and  their 
black  dependants  are  being  sent  to  school,  and  are 
taught  not  only  reading  and  writing  but  also  various 
industrial  arts,  with  the  result  that  the  Sudan  will 
soon  be  able  to  find  itself  in  mechanics,  blacksmiths, 


26  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

carpenters,  and  artisans  of  all  kinds,  without  assistance 
from  outside ;  and  presently  also  in  architects,  sur- 
veyors, engineers,  doctors,  schoolmasters,  officials, 
and  clerks.  The  muscle  and  physique  of  the  negro, 
combined  with  the  alert  intelligence  of  the  Arab,  should 
contribute  all  that  is  needed.  Already  there  is  abun- 
dant work,  at  wages  which  would  not  sound  wholly 
contemptible  in  the  East  End  of  London,  for  both 
kinds.  The  Government  railways,  shops,  and  dock- 
yards, employ  thousands  of  men,  and  an  industrial 
city,  still  newer  than  Khartum,  has  sprung  up  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  Blue  Nile.  Passing  through  these 
workshops,  filled  with  whirring  machinery,  one  saw 
Sudanese  fitters  and  enginemen  and  boat-builders 
and  riveters  toiling  briskly,  under  the  direction  of  a 
few  skilled  foremen  from  the  Clyde,  the  Tees,  or  the 
Don.  All  honour,  by  the  way,  to  these  canny  Scots 
and  quiet,  clean-faced  young  fellows  from  the  North 
and  the  Midlands.     The  Sudan  owes  much  to  them. 

At  the  far  end  of  the  long  river-front  of  Khartum, 
beyond  the  Palace,  and  the  club,  and  the  houses  of  the 
European  residents,  and  just  within  the  enceinte  of 
barracks  and  defensive  works  —  for  Khartum,  remem- 
ber, is  a  fortress  and  place  of  arms  —  stands  the  Gordon 
College.  It  is  an  imposing  building,  in  solid  brick  and 
stone,  with  wide  corridors  and  cool,  academic  cloisters. 
This  is  the  seminary  of  the  higher  education  for  the 
Sudan,  and  here  the  young  Sudanese,  who  has  learnt 
the  elements  in  the  primary  schools,  may  carry  his 


THE  GROWING  OF  KHARTUM     27 

studies  further  by  the  aid  of  Arabic-speaking  teachers, 
under  the  general  superintendence  of  certain  young  or 
youngish  gentlemen  who  have  acquired  proficiency  in 
cricket  and  other  ingenuous  arts  at  the  universities  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge.  The  boys  are  a  mixed  lot. 
One  was  pointed  out  to  me  as  the  son  of  an  Egyptian 
clerk  in  the  War  Department ;  another  was  the  child 
of  a  former  bitter  and  formidable  enemy  of  ours  — 
a  great  and  prosperous  slave  trader;  a  third  was  the 
son  of  one  of  the  Khalifa's  famous  Emirs,  a  foeman  who 
proved  himself  worthy  of  our  steel ;  two  more  were 
closely  related  to  the  false  Prophet  himself.  Some  of 
the  boys  had  marched  across  from  the  Cadets'  College, 
a  few  yards  away  —  a  sort  of  Sudanese  Sandhurst  — 
where  the  sons  of  officers  in  the  black  battalions  and 
some  others,  mostly  belonging  to  the  first  fighting 
families  of  the  country,  are  qualifying  for  the  military 
career.  The  Commandant  takes  an  especial  pride  in 
his  cadets,  and  has  brought  them  to  a  high  state  of 
efficiency.  He  was  kind  enough  to  parade  them  for 
my  inspection,  and  a  smarter  lot  of  young  soldiers 
I  have  not  often  seen.  The  boys  take  a  passionate 
delight  in  their  studies  ;  when  they  are  not  in  the  class- 
rooms or  on  the  parade  ground  they  sometimes  play 
football ;  but  their  favourite  amusement  is  to  drill 
one  another,  or  practise  their  gymnastic  exercises,  or 
read  military  text-books.  Thus  is  the  inherited  war- 
like instinct  turned  to  good  account.  Before  long  the 
Sudanese  contingent  will  be  able  to  find  its  subalterns 


28  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

and  non-commissioned  officers  without  drawing  upon 
Egypt. 

Throughout  the  Gordon  College  there  is  a  similar 
practical  aim.  The  Director  of  Education  has  very 
wisely  determined  that  a  high  literary  culture  is  a 
luxury  with  which  for  the  immediate  future  the  Sudan 
can  dispense.  The  young  Sudanese  is  not  encouraged 
to  read  Burke  and  Mill,  and  Herbert  Spencer  and  Berg- 
son,  nor  is  he  induced  to  browse  vaguely  over  English 
literature  and  modern  politics.  That  peculiar  intel- 
lectual stimulus  so  liberally  purveyed  to  the  youthful 
Bengali  is  denied  him.  I  did  not  hear  the  boys  recite 
any  English  poetry,  for  they  do  not  learn  English  poetry, 
which  would  certainly  confuse  and  probably  upset 
them.  But  I  went  through  the  drawing  office  and  the 
surveyor's  class,  and  saw  young  students,  working  out 
plans  with  metre-rule  and  T-square,  and  calculating 
quantities  with  a  neatness  and  precision  which  would 
do  no  discredit  to  Great  George  Street.  The  students 
learn  sufficient  English  for  all  such  purposes ;  not 
enough  to  denationalise  them  or  cause  them  to  forget 
that  they  are  the  Arabic-speaking  inhabitants  of  a 
Mohammedan  country.  Instead  of  qualifying  his 
pupils  to  become  disappointed  office-seekers  or  active 
political  agitators,  the  Director  endeavours  to  produce 
a  steady  stream  of  young  fellows,  with  the  elements 
of  a  sound  technical  training.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
he  had  chosen  the  better  way ;  and  I  even  thought 
that  some  more  highly  developed  communities  might 


THE  GROWING  OF  KHARTUM     29 

learn  something  from  the  educational  experiment  which 
is  being  conducted  in  the  heart  of  Africa. 

Khartum,  however,  is  doing  more  for  science  and 
learning,  and  education  in  the  highest  sense,  than  this. 
The  most  notable  building  in  the  place  —  in  some  re- 
spects the  most  notable  building  in  the  Sudan  or  in 
all  North  Africa  —  is  the  Wellcome  Institute.  Here, 
thanks  to  the  enterprise  and  liberality  of  Mr.  Henry 
S.  Wellcome,  the  head  of  the  famous  firm  of  manu- 
facturing druggists,  there  are  well-equipped  labora- 
tories and  consulting  rooms  in  which  a  staff  of  bacteri- 
ologists and  medical  experts  is  engaged  in  examining  the 
problems  of  tropical  vegetation,  germ-life,  and  disease. 
Results  of  the  utmost  value  may  be  expected  from  their 
researches,  which  may  end  in  extirpating  or  bringing 
under  control  the  worst  of  the  maladies  which  have 
hung  like  a  blight  over  the  vitality  and  the  progress 
of  the  sun-lands.  It  is  the  beginning  of  a  work  com- 
parable in  importance  to  that  of  the  great  Portuguese 
travellers  and  explorers  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries.  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator,  Vasco  da 
Gama,  and  Bartolomeo  Diaz  laid  open  the  coasts  of 
Africa  to  the  exploitation  and  commerce  of  Europe; 
but  through  all  the  intervening  centuries  the  interior 
of  the  Dark  Continent  has  remained  inhospitable  and 
deadly.  It  seems  as  if  modern  science  and  hygiene 
may  once  more  restore  it  to  civilisation  and  render  it 
habitable  and  wholesome  for  the  northern  races.  And 
in   this   great   peaceful    reconquest   of   the   South   the 


30  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Wellcome  Laboratories  of  Khartum  will  be  in  the  van- 
ward  files.  If  Britain  had  done  no  more  in  the  Sudan 
than  to  provide  a  secure  centre  for  this  scientific  work, 
we  should  have  justified  our  efforts  to  get  back  to  the 
Upper  Nile. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OMDURMAN 

The  transmutation  of  Omdurman  is  as  strange  in  its 
way  as  that  of  the  sister  city  across  the  Nile.  Omdur- 
man has  had  a  curious  history.  Some  thirty  years  ago 
it  was  an  unimportant  native  village.  When  Moham- 
med Ahmed,  the  Mahdi,  had  swept  up  all  the  Sudan, 
save  only  Khartum,  he  made  Omdurman  his  camp, 
where  he  assembled  his  armies  for  the  siege  of  the  last 
stronghold  of  Egyptian  rule.  After  the  fall  and  destruc- 
tion of  Khartum  he  turned  the  camp  into  his  capital, 
and  brought  together  a  vast  concourse  of  his  friends 
and  subjects.  The  policy  was  continued  by  his  suc- 
cessor, Abdullah,  the  Khalifa.  That  sensual  and 
suspicious  tyrant  would  have  liked  if  he  could  to  collect 
the  entire  population  of  his  dominions  about  the  walls 
of  his  own  residence.  No  one  knows  how  many  people 
there  were  in  Omdurman  fifteen  years  ago.  I  have 
heard  the  number  put  at  half  a  million  or  even  eight 
hundred  thousand.  It  is  an  immense  place  still, 
straggling  some  five  or  six  miles  along  the  river  bank ; 
but  two-thirds  is  empty  space,  though  its  population 
now  is  well  over  sixty  thousand.  Under  the  Khalifa's 
regime   of  blood   and   famine   the    inhabitants   of   the 


32  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Sudan  had  decreased  by  at  least  seventy  per  cent. 
The  figure  seems  incredible ;  but  the  best  authority  on 
the  subject,  the  Sirdar,  who  knows  everything  about 
the  Sudan  that  is  worth  knowing,  regards  it  as  an 
unduly  moderate  estimate.  When  we  came  into  posses- 
sion the  eight  or  nine  millions  of  the  Sudanese  peoples 
had  been  reduced  to  less  than  two ;  and  perhaps  a 
quarter  of  them  or  more  were  gathered  under  the 
Khalifa's  eye,  in  the  nest  of  reeking  lanes  round  the 
barracks  where  he  kept  his  servants  and  his  women, 
and  the  great  enclosure  in  which  he  held  his  prayer 
meetings. 

There  were  willing  and  unwilling  tenants  in  the 
houses  and  huts  of  Omdurman.  Many  thousands  were 
the  Khalifa's  janissaries,  the  dervishes  of  the  Baggara 
and  other  fighting  Arab  tribes,  on  whose  spears  his 
power  rested.  These  men  lived  at  free  quarters, 
plundering  the  negroes,  and  making  booty  of  the 
cattle  and  corn  and  women  of  those  who  were  suspected 
of  disloyalty  to  the  Prophet.  Others  were  the  warriors 
of  rival  Arab  clans  who  had  been  brought  into  Omdur- 
man so  that  they  could  be  watched  and  guarded. 
Here,  too,  were  all  the  European  and  Egyptian  prisoners 
whose  lives  it  had  been  deemed  desirable  to  spare. 
In  a  little  house  adjacent  to  the  Khalifa's  lived  Slatin 
during  the  ten  precarious  years  of  his  captivity,  some- 
times petted  by  the  capricious  tyrant,  sometimes  in- 
sulted and  bullied,  but  always,  in  spite  of  his  forced 
conversion   to  Mohammedanism,   treated   as   a   slave 


OMDURMAN  33 

and  aware  that  his  life  hung  by  a  thread.  Now  he  is 
Sir  Rudolf  von  Slatin  Pasha,  K.C.M.G.,  C.V.O.,  C.B., 
Inspector-General  of  the  Sudan,  the  second  greatest 
man  in  the  country,  next  only  to  the  Sirdar.  You 
may  meet  the  gallant  Austrian  officer  riding  his  pony 
through  the  streets  of  Khartum,  looking  not  at  all  as  if 
sixteen  years  of  his  life  had  been  passed  in  exile  and 
captivity,  amid  trials  and  dangers  enough  to  shake 
the  nerve  of  any  man.  And  in  Omdurman,  or,  perhaps, 
at  a  pleasant  afternoon  party  under  the  trees  of  the 
Palace  Gardens  at  Khartum,  you  could  till  lately  have 
seen  a  very  tall  old  man  in  a  rough  brown  cassock, 
girdled  with  cord,  a  man  with  a  long  beard,  a  face  all 
lined  and  seared  that  was  a  history  in  itself,  and  deep 
earnest  eyes  with  a  glint  of  humour  in  them.  This  was 
Father  Ohrwalder,  who  likewise  was  one  of  the  Mahdi's 
captives,  and  suffered  many  things  in  the  prison-houses 
of  Omdurman,  before  he  escaped  through  the  skilful 
contrivance  of  Sir  Reginald  Wingate.  When  the  end 
of  the  dervish  rule  came,  Father  Ohrwalder  went  back 
again,  not  to  a  palace  or  to  high  office,  but  to  live 
simply  in  Omdurman  and  to  work  among  his  'people,' 
some  of  them  Christians,  who  had  shared  his  own  cap- 
tivity. Everybody  liked  the  good  priest.  Moslems 
made  way  for  his  tall  figure  as  he  passed  through  the 
bazaars ;  he  was  friendly  with  the  Greek  priests  and 
the  Coptic  ecclesiastics ;  with  the  chief  of  his  own 
Austrian  mission,  as  well  as  with  Bishop  Gwynne,  the 
genial  and  popular  head  of  the  Protestant  community 


34  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

in  the  Sudan,  himself  the  friend  of  men  of  all  religions 
and  of  none. 

Omdurman  was  like  Peking  in  that  it  was  a  town 
within  a  town.  There  was  a  kind  of  '  Sacred  Forbidden 
City,'  a  walled  enclosure  in  the  core  of  the  huge  un- 
regulated mass  of  mean  buildings,  which  was  appro- 
priated by  the  Khalifa,  his  dependants,  his  personal 
followers,  and  his  Baggara  praetorians.  In  this  stood 
his  own  house,  a  somewhat  pretentious  edifice,  fitted 
with  a  bath-room,  mosquito  curtains,  carpets,  brass 
bedsteads,  doors  of  inlaid  wood  and  other  luxuries ; 
the  houses  of  his  sons,  his  arsenal  and  armoury  (where 
you  may  still  see  an  odd  collection  of  miscellaneous 
armour  and  weapons,  from  mailed  helmets  of  crusad- 
ing pattern  to  Tower  muskets  and  Remington  rifles 
taken  from  Hicks  Pasha),  his  treasury,  and  his  harem; 
here,  too,  was  the  Mahdi's  tomb,  which  Kitchener 
deemed  it  politic  to  destroy ;  and  the  great  Mosque ; 
and  the  gallows.  One  part  of  the  Khalifa's  house  has 
been  converted  to  the  use  of  the  present  administra- 
tion of  the  town.  On  the  ground  floor  I  saw  a  couple 
of  rooms  very  simply  furnished  with  a  writing  table, 
a  deck  chair,  a  shelf  with  a  few  books,  a  camp  bedstead 
and  metal  tub,  and  the  other  modest  articles  of  an 
Englishman's  toilet.  These  were  the  quarters  of  the 
junior  civilian,  fresh  from  Oxford,  who  was  assisting 
the  Mudir  of  Omdurman  and  learning  from  him  how 
to  govern  natives.  It  made  one  reflect  a  moment  on 
the  odd  revenges  and  juxtapositions  of  history  to  hear 


OMDURMAN  35 

the  young  gentleman's  name.  For  this  youthful  Sudan 
civilian  was  a  son  of  Mr.  Asquith,  the  liberal  Prime 
Minister  who  owed  his  rapid  advancement  in  official 
life  to  the  favour  and  high  regard  of  Mr.  Gladstone, 
that  other  great  liberal  statesman  whose  action  in  send- 
ing Gordon  to  Khartum  was  the  indirect  cause  of  the 
founding  of  Omdurman. 

Another  portion  of  the  Khalifa's  abode  has  been  con- 
verted into  the  residence  of  the  Mudir,  the  governor. 
The  position,  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  was  filled  by 
Captain  Young,  a  very  able  officer  lent  to  the  Sudan 
service  by  the  British  Army ;  and  Mrs.  Young  was 
then  the  only  English  lady  in  Omdurman  except  the 
wife  of  the  officer  commanding  one  of  the  Sudanese 
battalions.  English  ladies  are  rare  in  the  Sudan ; 
the  officers  stationed  up  the  country  are,  I  believe,  not 
expected  to  enter  the  matrimonial  state  without  the 
permission  of  the  Sirdar,  and  even  in  Khartum  itself 
ladies  are  few.  They  make  up  for  the  paucity  of  their 
numbers  by  being  exceedingly  charming  and  more 
hospitable,  even  to  the  passing  globe-trotter,  than 
that  peccant  person  usually  deserves.  After  a  morning 
in  Omdurman  I  lunched  with  great  satisfaction  in 
Mrs.  Young's  shady  dining-room ;  and  my  enjoyment 
of  this  agreeable  repast  was  increased  by  an  ever- 
present  sense  of  incongruity.  I  could  not  dismiss 
the  thought  that  these  pleasant,  English-seeming 
apartments,  with  their  quiet,  home-like  air  of  comfort, 
were,  in  fact,  those  in  which  Abdullah  had  carried  on 


36  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

his  orgies  and  taken  counsel  with  his  trembling  satel- 
lites. As  I  sat  on  the  broad  verandah,  with  its  rugs 
and  tea  tables,  I  had  before  me  the  dusty  plain  where 
the  Khalifa  assembled  his  fanatics  and  worked  them 
up  to  the  right  pitch  of  more  or  less  genuine  enthu- 
siasm. My  eyes  could  scan  the  spot  where  he  held 
his  daily  revivalist  meetings,  his  daily  floggings,  his 
not  infrequent  hangings.  The  civil  gaffir,  or  watch- 
man, who  held  my  pony  at  the  gate,  might  have  been 
one  of  Abdullah's  victims,  or  one  of  his  executioners, 
a  few  years  ago. 

The  Mudir  devoted  more  hours  of  a  busy  day  than  I 
had  any  title  to  expect  to  showing  me  round  Omdurman. 
Shrunk  as  it  is  from  its  former  proportions,  it  is  a  large 
place,  and  takes  a  long  time  to  see.  We  rode  through 
street  after  street,  and  lane  after  lane,  mostly  occupied 
by  small  bazaar  shops  doing  a  brisk  business.  Om- 
durman is  the  mart  and  entrepot  for  a  wide  tract  of 
north  Central  Africa,  and  natives  come  from  great 
distances  to  sell  and  buy  here.  You  can  find  good 
opportunity  for  studying  the  different  types  and  nations, 
from  the  Levantine,  in  black  trousers  and  pith  helmet, 
who  was  born,  perhaps,  by  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus, 
to  the  Bahr-el-Gazal  negro,  in  a  loin  cloth,  who  first 
saw  the  light  not  far  from  the  Equator.  I  was  intro- 
duced to  certain  of  the  local  manufacturers.  We  went 
to  the  quarter  of  the  silversmiths,  where  grave-looking 
Arabs  sell  heavy  bracelets  and  anklets  of  hammered 
metal,  and  little  trays  and  ornaments  neatly  woven  in 


OMDURMAN  37 

silver  wire.  They  are  good  handicraftsmen,  with 
their  primitive  tools,  but  they  have  no  originality  or 
sense  of  design.  On  the  other  hand,  they  can  copy 
a  model  with  exact  fidelity;  and  Captain  Young 
showed  me  various  articles  accurately  imitated  from 
the  European  patterns  which  he  had  supplied.  In  a 
small  back  yard,  we  found  the  establishment  of  a 
local  miller,  a  man  of  substance,  though  his  plant  con- 
sisted of  a  couple  of  grindstones  turned  by  a  patient 
camel,  which  walked  round  and  round  all  day  in  a 
little  covered  shed.  At  Omdurman  they  weave  an 
excellent  cotton  cloth  called  damur,  which  is  very  light 
and  strong,  and  more  porous  than  duck  or  crash ;  it  is 
much  liked  by  European  residents  in  the  Sudan  for 
suits  of  summer  clothing.  We  visited  one  of  the  local 
cotton  mills  where  this  cloth  is  woven.  The  owner 
was  a  woman,  and  she  had  half  a  dozen  female  assistants 
and  one  old  man  in  her  employ.  This  man  sat  on  the 
ground  with  his  legs  tucked  into  a  hole  under  him  and 
drove  the  shuttle  through  the  sticks  and  strings  of  a 
flimsy  loom,  such  as  you  may  see  anywhere  in  an  Indian 
village.  The  proprietress  herself  twisted  the  yarn 
with  a  spindle,  which  she  operated  with  a  marvellous 
and  baffling  dexterity.  She  took  the  thing  between 
her  two  brown,  skinny  little  palms,  and  rubbed  it  up 
and  down  for  a  moment,  and  it  became  alive  and  went 
on  spinning  and  spinning  and  spinning  with  a  perfectly 
uniform  motion ;  and  the  hank  of  yarn  came  out  and 
grew  longer  and  longer,  and  was  spun  into  a  thin  fine 


38  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

thread  and  never  broke.  How  it  was  done  you  could 
not  tell,  for  if  you  took  the  bobbin  yourself  and  tried 
to  spin  it  you  could  not  keep  it  going  for  half  a  dozen 
turns,  and  the  thread  snapped  off  almost  at  once.  The 
craftswoman  smiled,  and  took  the  machine  from  you, 
and  did  the  trick  again  as  easily  as  before.  It  is  a 
queer  tool,  the  Asiatic  or  the  African  hand.  Its 
possessor,  as  a  rule,  has  so  few  others  that  he  has 
learnt  how  to  do  all  he  wants  with  this  one. 

We  went  round  the  quarter  of  the  grain-sellers,  the 
bazaar  of  those  who  sell  potter's  wares  and  earthenware 
of  all  sorts  ;  we  inspected  the  vegetable  market,  and 
the  booths  of  the  butchers.  Everybody,  of  course, 
knew  the  Mudir  and  his  Egyptian  assistant  the  Mamur 
or  sub-magistrate,  and  everybody  was  polite,  attentive, 
good-humoured,  without  obsequiousness  or  servility. 
The  Sudanese  does  not  cringe  or  crouch  even  to  the 
man  he  gladly  recognises  as  his  superior ;  he  stands 
up  and  looks  him  in  the  face.  It  was  the  day  appointed 
for  the  trial  of  a  steam  fire-engine  which  Captain 
Young  had  imported  :  a  necessary  apparatus  in  these 
clustering  rows  of  huts  of  dried  brick  and  sun-baked 
wood  and  straw.  The  furnace  was  lighted,  and  long 
jets  of  water  were  spouted  into  the  air,  to  the  keen 
delight  of  a  great  crowd  of  men  and  women  and  bright- 
eyed  youngsters  who  watched  the  performance.  It 
was  all  very  interesting ;  but  as  I  went  the  round  I  was 
haunted  by  a  vague  sense  that  there  was  something 
missing,  something  I  was  unconsciously  expecting  and 


OMDURMAN  39 

did  not  find.  I  discovered  what  it  was  when  we  came 
to  the  quarter  of  the  butchers.  Therein  I  saw  meat 
weighed  out  and  sold  on  cleanly  slabs  of  zinc,  which 
slabs,  by  the  edict  of  the  Mudir,  are  flushed  and  scraped 
daily  with  as  much  care  and  nicety  as  if  they  adorned 
the  shop-front  of  a  Westend  poulterer.  Then  I  per- 
ceived what  was  lacking  to  the  sukh,  which  is  the 
market-place,  of  Omdurman.  The  familiar  odour  of 
the  Orient,  unforgetable  when  once  it  has  assailed  your 
nostrils,  was  absent.  Here  was  an  Eastern  bazaar, 
without  the  Eastern  smell,  that  pungent,  racy  flavour 
compounded  of  sun-dried  filth  and  close-packed  hu- 
manity and  the  miscellaneous  products  of  many 
animals.  The  life  and  colour  of  the  sun-lands  were 
there ;  but  not  the  dirt-heaps  before  the  open  doors, 
the  prowling  dogs  rooting  in  garbage,  the  mired  and 
feculent  ways.  Omdurman  is  genuine  Africa ;  but 
it  is  Africa  deodorised,  cleansed,  regulated,  made  safe 
and  wholesome  by  firm  and  patient  hands.  When 
you  recall  George  Steevens's  appalling  description  of 
that  place  as  it  was  when  we  took  possession  —  mounds 
of  festering  rottenness,  stenches  that  turned  the  soldiers 
sick,  dead  bodies  of  men  and  buffaloes  putrefying  in 
the  lanes  —  you  feel  that  its  inhabitants  have  some 
reason  for  gratitude  towards  their  present  rulers. 


CHAPTER  V 

ANGLO-SUDANESE  SOCIETY 

The  winter  visitor  to  Khartum  comes  away  with  a 
somewhat  exaggerated  belief  in  the  amenities  of  Anglo- 
Sudanese  life.  He  must  be  hard  to  please  if  he  has 
not  enjoyed  his  trip.  The  railway  journey  may  have 
been  a  trifle  long  and  dusty,  even  though  mitigated  by 
first-rate  sleeping  cars,  a  restaurant  wagon  de  luxe,  and 
excellent  baths  at  the  half-way  station  of  Abu  Hamed 
to  wash  the  desert  dust  off  the  voyager.  But  the 
tourist,  especially  if  provided  with  a  few  introductions, 
finds  everything  delightful.  The  climate  fills  him  with 
enthusiasm,  as  well  it  may,  for  in  December  and  Janu- 
ary it  would  be  perfect,  save  for  an  occasional  sand- 
storm. The  sun  shines  hotly  all  day  from  a  cloudless 
sky,  but  a  far  greater  heat  could  be  endured  in  this 
dry,  exhilarating  atmosphere ;  there  is  always  some 
breeze  stirring,  and  the  mornings  and  nights  are  fresh 
and  cool,  without  the  nipping  chill  that  is  apt  to  try 
the  liver  and  lungs  after  sundown  in  the  winter  of  some 
other  tropical  countries.  It  seems  good  to  be  alive 
in  these  bracing  mornings,  as  you  ride  along  the  river 
bank,  under  the  palms,  with  the  red  and  yellow  blos- 
soms glowing  on  one  side  of  you,  and  the  great  white 

40 


ANGLO-SUDANESE    SOCIETY  41 

river  gleaming  on  the  other ;  or  at  night,  after  a  pleas- 
ant dinner  party,  as  you  stroll  back  under  the  golden 
southern  moon  floating  through  the  purple  velvet  of 
the  sky. 

Then  there  is  so  much  that  is  novel  and  still  unhack- 
neyed. Even  the  small  discomforts  of  existence  are 
enjoyable.  There  are  few  carriages  in  Khartum,  ex- 
cept those  belonging  to  the  Palace  and  a  governess-cart 
or  two.  The  tourist  must  go  about  on  the  back  of  a 
donkey,  or  in  a  rickshaw,  drawn  by  the  same  useful 
beast.  The  donkeys  are  not  always  up  to  the  best 
Egyptian  standard,  and  they  are  often  provided  only 
with  the  stirrupless  native  saddle,  which  is  a  wooden 
framework,  with  a  sheepskin  thrown  over  it.  Conse- 
quently, locomotion  is  sometimes  slow,  and  the  hotel 
rickshaws  would  be  outpaced  easily  by  the  average 
seaside  perambulator.  The  residents  keep  their  own 
donkeys,  which  are  a  much  superior  breed,  or  ride 
sleek  Arab  ponies,  and  in  the  plenitude  of  their  hos- 
pitality they  will  often  let  the  visitor  have  the  loan  of 
one  of  these  animals.  They  make  him  welcome  to  their 
houses,  and  lend  him  steam-launches,  guides,  sailing- 
boats,  and  other  luxuries,  and  show  him  all  the  things 
worth  seeing,  and  generally  put  themselves  out  for  this 
passing  sojourner  to  a  quite  unwarrantable  and  un- 
expected extent.  Presently  the  miscellaneous  trippers 
—  the  Briton  doing  the  Nile  in  a  hurry,  the  American, 
the  German  —  will  pour  in.  Then  there  will  be  cabs 
and   motor-cars   and   many  hotels,   and  donkey  boys, 


42  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

unsophisticated  no  longer,  and  a  horde  of  the  pestering 
touts  who  make  Cairo  hideous ;  and  then,  I  suppose, 
Khartum  society  will  grow  reserved  and  inaccessible. 
Meanwhile,  it  is  still  new  enough  to  retain  the  pioneering 
tradition ;  it  still  feels  itself  a  settlement  of  the  English 
in  a  distant  land ;  and  it  is  still  pleased  to  see  the 
stranger  from  'home.'  It  is  particularly  pleased  if 
that  voyager  happens  to  be  feminine,  and  young,  and 
good-looking;  but  even  to  the  middle-aged  male  visi- 
tant with  some  credentials,  it  is  ready  to  open  its  heart 
and  its  doors. 

All  these  things  naturally  predispose  one  to  a  favour- 
able estimate  of  Anglo-Sudanese  society.  It  is  indeed 
a  very  pleasant  and  attractive  body  of  people  who 
assemble  in  the  Sudan  capital  in  the  winter  months, 
whom  it  would  be  difficult  not  to  like.  Something  of 
the  brightness  of  the  clear  oxygenated  air  has  commu- 
nicated itself  to  the  residents,  who  have  tempered  the 
national  stiffness  with  a  certain  Southern  vivacity. 
Then  it  is  a  society  of  people  in  the  prime  of  life  and 
health.  Everybody  in  the  Sudan  is  young  or  youngish. 
There  are  very  few  Englishmen  in  the  whole  territory 
over  fifty;  most  are  well  under  forty,  many  below 
thirty.  Officers  in  this  service  do  not  have  to  wait 
till  they  are  grey  and  bald  before  obtaining  positions 
of  responsibility  and  power.  They  are  commanding 
regiments  or  governing  provinces  at  an  age  when  in 
England  they  would  be  helping  to  drill  a  company  or 
sealing  documents  in  Downing  Street.     The  English- 


ANGLO-SUDANESE    SOCIETY  43 

man  who  wears  the  Khedivial  badge  is  too  scarce  and 
costly  an  article  to  be  wasted  over  mere  routine.  He 
joins  the  service  at  five-and-twenty  or  so,  and  after 
a  very  short  apprenticeship  he  is  placed  in  some  post 
of  importance,  where  he  has  to  exercise  his  own  initia- 
tive and  direct  many  native  subordinates.  The  Sudan 
may  not  have  more  than  ten  years  of  him  altogether, 
and  it  cannot  afford  to  let  him  spend  too  much  time  in 
learning  his  business.  It  takes  him  young  and  it 
means  to  make  the  best  of  him  before  his  youth  has 
gone ;    it  is  no  country  or  climate  for  the  old. 

To  the  advantage  of  youth  it  seemed  to  me  that 
Sudan  society  added  a  quite  exceptional  allowance  of 
good  looks.  This  may  be  an  accident ;  I  do  not  sup- 
pose that  the  qualifying  examination  for  admission 
includes  a  beauty  competition.  But  it  is  not  alto- 
gether fortuitous.  The  Government  insists  on  a  high 
standard  of  health  and  physical  fitness  in  the  soldiers 
and  civilians  it  employs  ;  and  nearly  all  of  them  are 
tall  and  strong  and  cleanly  built  and  have  a  wholesome 
and  athletic  appearance.  As  for  the  ladies,  I  do  not 
know  why  they  should  have  more  than  the  common 
share  of  personal  attractiveness,  unless  it  is  a  case  of 
natural  (very  natural)  selection.  I  have,  indeed,  a 
suspicion  that  when  the  young  officer  communicates 
his  desire  to  commit  matrimony  to  the  Sirdar  that 
shrewd  and  kindly  autocrat  expects  to  have  the  portrait 
of  the  lady  submitted  to  him  as  well  as  her  dossier. 
But  I  hasten  to  add  that  I  have  no  official  warrant  for 


44  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

this  suggestion.  It  is  no  more  than  a  theory  of  my  own, 
formed  when  I  surveyed  the  very  becoming  feminine 
'gallery'  at  the  Sirdar's  review  of  the  Egyptian  and 
Sudanese  troops  of  his  garrison. 

Well,  sunshine,  open  air,  good  health,  abundant 
exercise,  and  plenty  of  hard,  but  thoroughly  interesting 
work  ought  to  make  people  good-humoured.  Nobody 
has  time  to  loaf  or  mope  in  Khartum ;  and  nobody  is 
idle.  Everybody,  on  the  contrary,  is  extremely  busy, 
for  the  field  is  large  and  the  labourers  few ;  and  if 
the  harvest  is  to  be  gathered  in  season  and  the  due 
amount  of  'leave'  obtained  in  the  year,  the  business 
must  be  put  through  with  energy.  There  is  no  room 
for  'slackers'  in  the  Sudan,  and  no  tenderness  for  them. 
Public  feeling  is  altogether  against  this  class  of  offender, 
who  soon  learns  to  amend  his  ways,  or  if  incorrigible 
is  quietly  sent  elsewhere.  What  strikes  one  most  is 
the  extraordinary  alertness  of  these  young  officers  and 
officials,  the  keenness  with  which  they  pursue  their 
work,  the  absorbing  interest  they  take  in  it.  They 
find  time  to  play,  too ;  there  is  polo  or  tennis  going 
most  afternoons,  some  cricket,  football  for  the  British 
battalion,  a  little  shooting  of  sand-grouse  and  gazelle 
and  bigger  game,  bridge  at  the  club,  tea  parties  and 
dinner  parties  in  the  winter  months,  which  is  the 
Khartum  'season.'  But  all  these  are  incidentals. 
Nobody  is  sportsman  enough  to  live  for  sport  in  the 
Sudan ;  the  social  amusements  are  a  mere  passing 
episode  of  the  cool  weather.     The  real  interest  is  the 


ANGLO-SUDANESE    SOCIETY  45 

work.  Nobody  minds  talking  'shop'  in  the  Sudan, 
for  often  there  is  nothing  else  to  talk  about.  Besides, 
they  like  it. 

'It  is  a  new  toy  for  them,  this  Sudan,'  said  a  clever 
lady  to  me  in  Khartum.  These  young  fellows  have 
thrown  themselves  into  the  task  of  ruling,  administer- 
ing, educating,  drilling,  policing,  civilising  their  miscel- 
laneous millions,  black  and  brown,  scattered  over  a 
sub-continent,  with  the  same  light-hearted  earnestness 
which  you  find  in  the  subalterns  of  a  native  Indian 
regiment  or  in  the  ward-room  of  one  of  his  Majesty's 
cruisers.  They  do  not  assume  any  excessive  air  of 
seriousness,  but,  on  the  contrary,  take  everything  with 
a  kind  of  schoolboy,  gaiety ;  but  every  man's  heart  is 
in  the  job,  and  particularly  in  his  own  share  of  it.  One 
tall,  smooth-cheeked  youth  kept  me  up  half  a  night  to 
discuss  the  special  qualities  and  peculiar  merits  of 
certain  machinery  entrusted  by  the  Public  Works 
Department  to  his  charge.  Another,  a  bimbashi  of 
the  Camel  Corps,  occupied  many  hours  of  a  long  railway 
journey  in  impressing  upon  me  the  value  of  camelry, 
properly  drilled,  in  the  scheme  of  things.  His  heart 
was  with  the  camel ;  I  never  heard  so  much  good  said 
for  the  ungainly  creature  before.  But  the  Camel  Corps, 
you  see,  was  this  young  officer's  affair,  and  he  took  a 
deep  professional  pride  in  it.  I  remembered  how  I  went 
on  board  a  two-funnelled  steam-launch  at  a  naval 
review,  and  remarked  to  the  infant  in  command : 
'This  is  one  of  the  fastest  boats  in  the  fleet,  isn't  she  ?' 


46  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

'She's  the  fastest  of  them  all,'  said  the  boy.  'I 
thought,'  I  replied,  'that  the  Tetrahedron'' s  pinnace 
was  faster.'  The  boy  bounced  with  indignation,  and 
turned  to  the  bearded  quartermaster  at  his  side.  'We 
can  go  half  a  knot  better  than  they,  can't  we,  Wilkins  ?' 
'I  should  think  we  could,  sir,  and  a  knot  too  if  we 
liked.'  That  is  the  spirit  of  the  Navy ;  it  is  the  spirit 
that  also  prevails  under  the  Two  Flags. 

I  have  a  respect  for  the  British  regimental  officer, 
especially  when  I  see  him  outside  the  Metropolitan 
police  district,  where  he  is  usually  at  his  worst ;  but 
I  should  not  like  to  assume  that  his  average  quality 
could  be  correctly  gauged  by  the  examples  one  meets 
in  the  Sudan.  As  a  fact,  these  are  all  picked  men, 
and  they  are  not  unconscious  of  the  circumstance. 
The  Government  insists  on  mind  as  well  as  muscle. 
It  will  have  its  young  men  healthy  and  strong;  but 
it  wants  them  to  possess  a  fair  allowance  of  brains  and 
the  ability  to  use  them.  No  officer  can  be  seconded 
for  service  with  the  Egyptian  army  who  cannot  produce 
the  highest  testimonials  from  his  military  superiors, 
and  he  must  pass  a  rather  severe  qualifying  examina- 
tion in  addition.  The  same  rule  applies  to  the  young 
civilian  nominated  from  the  universities.  The  novice  is 
given  a  reasonable  time  to  master  Arabic,  which  is  not 
an  easy  language,  and  if  he  fails  to  attain  the  requisite 
standard  he  is  returned  whence  he  came. 

Many  other  things  he  has  to  learn,  and  he  contrives 
to  learn  them.     The  tradition  in  the  Sudan  is  in  favour 


ANGLO-SUDANESE    SOCIETY  47 

of  the  exercise  of  the  intelligence.  The  two  men  who 
have  had  most  to  do  with  the  destinies  of  the  country 
so  far  —  Lord  Kitchener  and  the  present  Sirdar  —  have 
shown  that  high  intellectual  interests  are  not  incon- 
sistent with  hard  fighting  and  the  winning  of  battles. 
Sir  Reginald  Wingate,  like  his  former  chief,  but  perhaps 
in  a  greater  degree,  is  a  scholar,  a  linguist,  a  student  of 
antiquities  and  history.  But  he  had  to  do  his  share  of 
rough  and  perilous  soldiering  work,  though  the  public 
knew  little  about  it  at  the  time,  being  just  then  other- 
wise occupied.  After  the  great  battle  of  Omdurman  in 
September  1898,  George  Steevens,  who  told  its  story  in 
his  vivacious  prose,  went  home,  the  other  able  corre- 
spondents went  home,  most  of  the  1 1,000  British  troops 
went  home,  even  Lord  Kitchener  went  home.  There 
came  the  friction  with  France,  and  then  in  a  little  while 
the  growing  quarrel  with  the  Boers,  and  we  all  forgot 
the  Khalifa.  But  that  inconvenient  person  had  got 
away  after  his  Baggara  had  been  mown  down  in  heaps 
by  the  maxim  and  rifle  fire  at  Kerreri.  He  assembled 
another  army,  7000  strong,  and  a  year  after  the  great 
victory  Sir  Reginald  Wingate  was  in  hot  pursuit  of  him. 
There  were  no  British  soldiers  at  Ghedit,  where  the 
final  battle  was  fought :  only  a  few  British  officers  and 
some  2000  native  troops.  It  was  not  very  far  from  the 
scene  of  Hicks  Pasha's  defeat;  and  at  one  moment  it 
looked  as  if  there  might  be  a  repetition  of  that  disaster. 
For  Sir  Reginald  Wingate  was  greatly  outnumbered,  and 
his  troops  in  their  final  dash  had  to  march  nearly  two 


48  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

days  without  water,  with  the  risk  of  finding  the  wells 
occupied  in  force  by  the  enemy.  Yet  the  hazard  had 
to  be  run ;  for  if  the  Khalifa  had  been  allowed  to  get 
away  then  the  tribes  would  assuredly  have  assembled 
round  him  again,  and  the  conquest  of  the  Sudan  would 
have  had  to  begin  de  novo.  Fortunately  the  Khalifa 
had  not  seized  the  wells,  but  the  peril  was  not  over. 
The  dervishes,  wiser  than  at  Omdurman,  made  a  night 
attack  on  the  British  zariba,  and  it  was  awkward  work  to 
repel  the  rush  of  the  spearmen  in  the  dark.  But  the 
Sudanese  and  Egyptian  soldiers  stood  their  ground, 
the  attack  gradually  died  away,  and  Wingate's  men 
advancing  drove  the  dervishes  before  them.  In  the 
centre  of  the  field  they  found  the  body  of  the  Khalifa. 
Before  him  lay  a  line  of  his  chosen  guard  of  riflemen, 
swept  away  by  a  blast  of  fire  which  converged  by  some 
lucky  chance  upon  this  spot  in  the  darkness.  Every 
man  died  where  he  stood,  with  his  musket  at  his  shoul- 
der. Behind  his  escort  Abdullah  had  seated  himself  on 
his  carpet,  with  his  Emirs  about  him  ;  and  here  they  met 
their  death  with  the  calm  and  silent  dignity  of  the 
children  of  Islam  when  it  is  the  will  of  Allah  that  the 
end  shall  come.  Many  evil  deeds  were  done  by  Ab- 
dullah the  Khalifa  ;  but  he  died  better  than  he  lived. 
And  his  Africans  were  faithful  to  him  to  the  last,  as 
African  troops  have  so  often  been  faithful  in  defeat 
to  the  Chief  who  has  led  them  to  victory.  As  the  tale 
of  Ghedit  was  told  me,  I  thought  of  Hannibal's  Old 
Guard  of  Numidians,  dying  grimly  under  the  swords 


ANGLO-SUDANESE    SOCIETY  49 

of  the  legionaries,  in  that  battle  at  Zama  which  sealed 
the  fate  of  Carthage  two  thousand  years  ago. 

But  the  final  blow  at  the  Khalifa  was  struck,  as  I 
have  said,  by  one  who  was  not  only  a  soldier  but  also  a 
student,  a  man  of  books  and  ideas  as  well  as  a  man  of 
action.  There  is  enough  of  this  spirit  in  the  Sudan  to 
keep  it  from  that  deadness  to  all  intellectual  interests 
which  does  unhappily  sometimes  oppress  a  British 
community,  predominantly  official  and  military,  in 
the  outlying  parts  of  the  globe.  But  then,  also,  you 
must  recollect  that  the  British  bey  or  bimbashi  in  the 
Sudan  is  much  more  in  touch  with  'home'  than  most  of 
those  who  serve  the  Empire  in  distant  regions.  He  gets 
his  three  months'  clear  'leave'  every  year  so  far  as  the 
exigencies  of  his  duty  permit ;  which  is  enough  to 
enable  him  to  reach  England  and  freshen  himself  for 
eight  weeks  or  so  under  a  Northern  sky.  In  India, 
even  now,  people  still  talk  of  'Europe'  and  'Europeans,' 
not  of  England  and  English ;  they  feel  themselves  so 
far  away  from  the  continent  of  their  nativity  that  minor 
distinctions  are  merged.  In  the  Sudan  there  is  no  such 
suggestive  nomenclature ;  they  would  stare  at  you 
if  you  spoke  of  a  European  policeman  or  a  European 
soldier.  They  are  at  home  too  often  to  talk  the 
language  of  exile.  This  ample  allowance  of  holidays  is 
one  of  the  attractions  of  the  service ;  it  is  also  one  of 
the  things  that  lead  the  winter  visitor  to  exaggerate 
those  attractions.  He  does  not  see  Khartum  in  the  hot 
weather,  when  all  the  ladies  have  left,  when  the  ther- 


50  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

mometer  is  at  120  degrees  in  the  shade,  when  a  piece 
of  metal  in  the  daytime  cannot  be  touched  without 
burning  the  fingers,  when  storms  of  redhot  dust  are 
driving  over  everything.  Still  less  does  he  realise  that 
Khartum,  with  its  nice  houses  and  gardens,  is  merely 
the  administrative  and  military  centre.  The  hardest 
work  of  the  country  is  done  away  in  the  provinces,  in 
Kordofan,  in  the  Bahr-el-Ghazal,  almost  to  the  Equator, 
or  far  up  the  Blue  Nile  towards  the  Abyssinian  frontier, 
where  men  are  toiling  under  a  vertical  sun,  sometimes 
amid  swamps,  deserts,  or  fever-haunted  bush.  No 
club  for  them,  no  tea  parties,  no  Palace,  with  its  informal 
little  court,  sometimes  no  white  companion  to  speak  to 
for  months  at  a  time ;  and  that  in  a  climate  which, 
pleasant  enough  as  it  may  seem  in  December,  with  a 
good  roof  above  you  and  an  ice-machine  handy,  is 
uncommonly  trying  without  such  amenities  in  the 
month  of  August.  I  have  heard  it  hinted  that  in 
Khartum  and  in  Cairo  the  officials  are  rather  too 
generously  served  in  the  matter  of  leave ;  but  nobody 
denies  that  the  men  up  the  country  need  all  they  get 
and  deserve  all  they  can  take. 


CHAPTER  VI 
CONCERNING   POLITICS  AND  PERSONS 

The  Government  of  the  Sudan  is  an  anomaly  within 
an  anomaly,  as  I  was  forcibly  reminded  one  bright 
morning  in  Omdurman  when  I  watched  a  battalion 
of  the  Egyptian  army  on  parade.  The  sun  glanced  on 
a  long  line  of  swarthy  Arabs  and  absolute  negroes, 
arrayed  in  uniforms  which  only  the  genius  of  Anglo- 
Indian  military  tailoring  could  have  devised ;  three 
or  four  young  Englishmen  in  brown  helmets  and  khaki 
rode  along  the  ranks ;  the  band  was  drumming  and 
trumpeting  vigorously  to  the  tune  of  'Men  of  Harlech' ; 
the  colour  party  bore  a  green  and  gold  flag  with  the 
Khedivial  crescent.  Suddenly  the  colonel  rapped  out 
half  a  dozen  sharp  orders  in  — Turkish.  Not  in  Eng- 
lish, you  perceive,  which  is  the  language  of  the  officers, 
not  in  the  colloquial  Arabic,  which  is  the  language  of 
the  men  ;  but  in  Turkish,  which  is  as  much  a  foreign 
tongue  to  all  grades  as  Chinese.  And  it  was  brought 
home  to  me  by  this  curious  linguistic  performance  that 
I  was  under  the  shadow  of  the  Sultan,  in  a  land  which 
is  still,  according  to  vague  political  fiction,  linked  on 
to  that  queer  conglomerate,  the  Ottoman  Empire. 

Egypt  is  not  an  independent  country,  still  less,  I  need 
hardly  say,  does  it  'belong'  to  England  ;  it  is  a  province 

51 


52  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

of  Turkey,  and  its  ruler  is  theoretically  the  Viceroy  of 
the  Sultan,  who  has  kindly  permitted  some  British 
troops  to  'occupy'  the  country  temporarily  to  assist  in 
maintaining  order,  with  some  British  officials  to  help  the 
Egyptians  in  the  business  of  government.  In  this  con- 
dition of  dependence,  formally  on  Turkey,  practically 
on  Great  Britain,  Egypt  has  a  half-share  in  the  Sudan, 
England  having  the  other  half.  It  is  a  condominium 
regulated  by  the  agreement  of  1899,  which  declares 
that  the  English  and  Egyptian  flags  shall  be  used  to- 
gether throughout  the  territory;  that  the  military 
and  civil  control  shall  be  vested  in  the  Governor- 
General  of  the  Sudan,  who  must  also  be  the  Sirdar  of 
the  Egyptian  army,  and  cannot  be  removed  by  the  Khe- 
dive without  the  consent  of  the  British  Government ; 
that  the  'capitulations'  and  consular  jurisdictions  are 
not  in  force  as  in  Egypt ;  and  that  the  import  and 
export  of  slaves  are  absolutely  prohibited.  The 
Sudan  is  divided  into  fourteen  provinces,  each  presided 
over  by  an  English  Mudir,  or  Governor,  responsible 
to  the  Governor-General,  who  is  nominally  responsible 
to  the  Khedive  and  the  King ;  actually  responsible  to 
nobody,  unless  it  be  the  British  Agent  in  Cairo,  who  is, 
in  theory,  one  of  the  foreign  Consuls-General,  and  in 
reality  the  representative  of  the  British  Government, 
which  controls  the  Government  of  Egypt. 

It  is  a  situation  distinctly  mixed  when  one  tries  to 
put  it  upon  paper.  In  effect  it  is  simpler  than  it  looks. 
The  truth  is  that  the  Sudan  is  a  vast  territory,  inhabited 


CONCERNING   POLITICS  AND   PERSONS     53 

by  African  natives,  administered  by  English  officials, 
with  the  assistance  of  Egyptian  subordinates,  and  de- 
fended by  a  force  of  Egyptian  and  Sudanese  troops 
under  English  command.  A  single  battalion  of  the 
British  'Army  of  Occupation'  is  garrisoned  in  Khartum. 
But  in  this  town  and  in  Omdurman  and  elsewhere  in 
the  Sudan  are  stationed  four-fifths  of  the  Egyptian 
army.  There  are  some  cavalry  in  Cairo,  chiefly  to  do 
escort  duty  for  the  Khedive,  three  infantry  battalions 
in  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt,  a  few  guns,  and  military 
police.  The  rest  of  the  Egyptian  army  —  infantry, 
mounted  men,  and  artillery  —  are  beyond  the  frontier. 
There  is  an  Egyptian  War  Office  in  Cairo,  but  it  has  not 
much  to  do.  Most  of  the  business  is  conducted  in 
Khartum.  The  Commander-in-Chief  is  there,  the 
Headquarters  Staff,  the  military  secretary,  and  adju- 
tant-general. It  is  in  the  Sudan  that  the  Egyptian 
army  is  trained,  for  it  is  in  the  Sudan  that  it  is  most 
likely  to  have  to  fight,  if  any  fighting  comes  to  be  done. 
The  duty  of  looking  after  Egypt  devolves  mainly  upon 
the  small  British  force  which  is  called  the  Army  of 
Occupation  —  so  called  because  we  are  only  'occupying' 
Egypt,  just  to  see  that  things  go  right,  in  a  quite  casual 
and  temporary  way,  meanwhile  obligingly  assisting 
the  Egyptians  to  govern  themselves  in  a  decent  and 
tolerable  fashion. 

In  the  Sudan,  however,  we  have  no  need  to  keep  up 
the  fiction  of  being  'advisers'  to  native  administrators. 
Englishmen  are  running  the  territory  without  disguise, 


54  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

to  the  great  advantage  of  its  inhabitants.  To  all  intents 
and  purposes,  these  provinces  are  under  British  rule. 
The  military  and  civil  hierarchy  is  entirely  English  in 
its  higher  grades  ;  the  subordinates  are  mostly  Egyp- 
tian, but  their  nationality  is  only,  so  to  speak,  inci- 
dental ;  many,  in  fact,  are  Syrians,  Greeks,  and  Levan- 
tines, and  some  are  Sudanese  natives.  Egypt  at  pres- 
ent furnishes  the  best  available  supply  of  intelligent 
Arabic-speaking  persons  with  education  enough  to 
become  company  officers,  minor  magistrates,  railway 
officials,  post-office  employes,  and  the  like.  But  they 
do  not  stand  the  Sudan  climate  very  well,  and  they  are 
not  particularly  happy  in  the  country.  They  are 
being  supplemented,  and,  perhaps  in  time  will  be 
supplanted,  by  the  young  Arabs  and  young  negroes 
whom  we  are  training  at  the  Gordon  College,  in 
the  military  school,  and  in  the  technical  workshops. 
There  will  be  Sudanese  captains  and  subalterns,  Sudan- 
ese schoolmasters,  kadis,  and  clerks,  Sudanese  sur- 
veyors, irrigation  officials,  and  tax  collectors,  and  they 
will  gradually  replace  the  Egyptian  functionaries,  who 
are  in  reality  almost  as  much  foreigners  in  the  country 
as  we  are  ourselves.  In  time,  also,  it  may  be  possible 
to  dispense  with  the  conscripted  fellahin  of  the  Lower 
Nile  valley,  who  fill  the  cadres  of  the  Egyptian  regi- 
ments, leaving  the  defence  of  the  Southern  territory 
entirely  to  the  black  battalions  made  up  of  voluntarily 
enlisted  natives  of  the  Sudan.  The  majority  of  their 
company    officers    and    non-commissioned   officers   are 


CONCERNING  POLITICS  AND   PERSONS     55 

now  Egyptians  ;  but  the  sons  of  the  fighting  chiefs  and 
other  scions  of  the  'first  families'  of  the  Sudan  are  being 
made  ready  to  take  these  positions.  Then  we  shall 
have  a  Sudan  army  exactly  analogous  to  that  of  India  — 
commanded  by  English  generals  and  colonels  and 
majors,  with  natives  of  the  soil  in  the  ranks  and  in 
the  intermediate  grades. 

Egypt,  meanwhile,  had  to  foot  the  bill,  and  some 
Egyptians,  especially  those  who  contributed  to  the 
Nationalist  newspapers,  complained  bitterly  of  the 
burden.  In  practice  it  was  not  very  onerous.  When 
the  Sudan  was  reconquered  it  was  recognised  that  for 
several  years  this  devastated  and  depopulated  tract 
could  not  be  expected  to  pay  its  way,  and  that  the  defi- 
cit must  be  made  good  from  the  Egyptian  revenues. 
This  was  a  mistake,  due  to  the  customary  tenderness 
of  all  British  Governments  for  the  British  tax-payer. 
We  should  have  put  ourselves  in  a  stronger  position 
if  we  had  become  responsible,  jointly  with  Egypt,  for  the 
deficiency ;  and  the  liability,  as  it  turns  out,  would  have 
been  light  and  transient.  The  Sudan  now  is  paying  its 
way  and  requires  no  external  assistance.  Its  Financial 
Secretary,  Colonel  Bernard,  a  military  officer  whom 
Lord  Kitchener  'discovered'  and  turned  into  a  highly 
competent  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  has  been 
reducing  the  deficit  year  by  year.  In  1898  the  annual 
revenue  was  £E35,ooo;  by  1906  it  has  risen  to  £E8o4,- 
000;  in  1912  it  was  £Ei,7io,ooo.  The  contribution 
by  the  Egyptian  Government  in  the  last-named  year 


56  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

was  £E33 5,000;  but  against  this  was  to  be  set  off  a 
return  payment  of  £Ei72,ooo  for  maintenance  of  the 
army  in  the  Sudan,  so  that  the  net  cost  to  Lower 
Egypt  of  the  Upper  Provinces  is  only  ££163,000.  But 
in  the  current  year  (191 3)  this  charge  disappears  alto- 
gether, under  a  new  settlement  of  the  financial  rela- 
tions between  the  Cairo  and  Khartum  Governments. 
By  this  settlement,  the  contribution  of  Egypt  to  the 
Sudan  Exchequer  and  the  payment  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  army  are  abolished,  on  condition  that  the  Egyp- 
tian Government  hands  over  to  the  Sudan  the  customs 
duties  on  goods  destined  for  the  territory  collected  in 
Egypt.  Thus  the  Sudan  is  now  self-supporting.  Its 
revenue  and  expenditure,  if  all  goes  well,  will  balance 
without  external  subventions.  But  even  if  Egyptwere 
still  called  upon  to  contribute  a  hundred  thousand  or  so 
per  annum  it  would  not  be  an  excessive  amount  to  pay 
for  the  maintenance  of  a  settled  government  along  the 
whole  course  of  the  Nile,  right  up  to  its  sources,  and 
for  the  removal  of  the  menace  which  hung  over  Egypt 
so  long  as  the  southern  territories  were  in  a  turmoil  of 
warlike  barbarism.  For  the  present  Egypt  secures  re- 
pose and  immunity ;  and  in  the  future  she  will  double 
her  irrigation  supply,  and  add  many  millions  to  the  value 
of  her  lands,  by  those  great  engineering  works  which 
can  only  be  undertaken  by  a  Government  having  full 
control  of  the  upper  waters  of  the  two  great  rivers  which 
mingle  at  Khartum  to  pour  their  life-giving  fluid 
through  the  lower  valley.     For  the  first  time  in  history 


CONCERNING   POLITICS  AND  PERSONS     57 

a  civilised  Power  can  deal  with  the  Niles  and  their 
tributary  streams,  as  a  whole.  Egypt,  which  thirty 
years  hence,  thanks  to  the  engineers  and  administra- 
tors of  the  Sudan,  may  be  twice  as  rich  as  she  is  at 
present,  need  not  grudge  her  contribution  towards  the 
cost  of  the  process  in  its  initial  stages. 

The  present  task  of  the  English  rulers  is  to  maintain 
order,  heal  the  wounds  caused  by  the  Mahdist  fury,  and 
restore  civilised  conditions  of  life.  Create,  perhaps, 
would  be  a  better  word  than  restore ;  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  we  have  some  vestiges  of  an  old  civili- 
sation to  work  upon.  Modern  scholars  and  historians 
dismiss  the  idea  that  these  Central  African  regions 
were  never  anything  but  a  mere  welter  of  savagery. 
We  know  now  that  Ethiopia  shared  in  the  culture  and 
in  the  social  development  of  ancient  Egypt,  as  its  monu- 
ments show ;  and  we  know,  too,  that  this  old  Nilotic 
civilisation  lasted  on  in  the  upper  regions  long  after  it 
had  succumbed  in  Egypt  to  the  attacks  from  the  north 
and  west.  Christianity  assimilated,  but  did  not  de- 
stroy it ;  for  centuries  after  the  Arabs  had  overwhelmed 
Egypt  there  was  a  Christian  empire  in  Africa,  cut  off 
from  the  north  by  the  Moslem  wave,  with  its  churches, 
its  schools,  its  monasteries,  its  walled  towns,  its  industries, 
and  its  well-organised  society.  As  late  as  the  four- 
teenth century  these  Ethiopian  States  maintained  their 
individuality,  nor  were  they  finally  engulfed  in  the 
Mohammedan  tide  till  the  seventeenth.  Up  till  that 
time  —  and  even  later  —  there  were  the  relics  of  an 


58  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

indigenous  civilisation,  which  had  in  it,  perhaps,  the 
germs  of  something  higher  than  the  Asiatic  Orientalism 
with  its  bad  European  veneer,  introduced  by  the  Turks 
and  Arabs.  The  conquests  of  Mehemet  Ali  did  more  to 
demoralise  than  to  raise  the  Ethiopian  races.  There 
were  military  stations,  barracks,  forts,  steamers,  the 
telegraph ;  but  the  people  were  plundered  and  preyed 
upon  by  ruffianly  soldiers  and  corrupt  officials,  the 
flourishing  caravan  trade  was  broken  up,  and  whole- 
sale slave-hunting  was  encouraged.  The  'Turks'  had 
rendered  their  own  tenure  precarious  by  their  oppres- 
sion, even  before  the  pseudo-Messiah  united  all  the 
elements  antagonistic  to  them  by  the  bond  of  a  common 
fanaticism. 

In  that  period  of  disruption  and  unrest  which  even- 
tually brought  us  upon  the  Nile  strange  things  happened 
and  strange  figures  appeared.  I  had  been  lunching 
at  Khartum  with  a  high  official  of  the  Government  in 
one  of  those  charming  villas  on  the  river  bank.  'Don't 
go,'  said  the  host,  as  we  were  rising  to  take  our  leave ; 
'Zubeir  Pasha  is  here,  and  I  dare  say  you  would  like 
to  see  him.'  Certainly  we  would  like  to  see  him.  What 
would  you  say  if  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  or  Bertrand  du 
Guesclin  strolled  in  for  a  chat  over  the  teacups  ?  To 
see  Zubeir  Pasha  face  to  face  was  as  if  some  long  dead 
and  buried  adventurer  had  come  to  life  out  of  the  pages 
of  the  history  books.  His  name  was  well  enough 
known  to  the  British  public  through  the  newspapers 
and  the  parliamentary  debates  of  the  Gordon  period ; 


CONCERNING   POLITICS  AND   PERSONS     59 

for  this  old  man,  who  lived  right  down  into  the  second 
decade  of  the  twentieth  century,1  had  played  a 
great  part  in  Sudan  affairs  long  before  the  Mahdi 
rose,  and  might  have  played  a  greater  part  still 
had  Gordon  been  allowed  to  have  his  way  at  the 
last.  He  was  an  Arab  of  the  Berber  region,  who 
plunged  into  the  wilder  parts  of  the  Sudan  many  years 
before  the  'Turk'  had  been  shaken  out  of  the  tropical 
provinces,  while  Ismail  Pasha's  regiments  were  still 
patrolling  the  country,  bullying  the  tribes,  levying 
contributions,  pretending  to  suppress  the  slave  dealers, 
and  meanwhile  taking  toll  of  their  illicit  gains.  In 
this  welter  Zubeir  was  at  home.  He  was  energetic, 
capable,  ambitious,  with  abundant  courage,  and  no 
scruples  to  spare  ;  a  keen  trader,  an  excellent  organiser, 
with  some  talent  for  soldiering  and  leadership.  He 
built  up  a  great  personal  and  commercial  influence 
in  the  Sudan  provinces.  He  traded,  he  fought,  he 
brought  the  tribes  together,  he  made  a  sort  of  confedera- 
tion which  included  Darfur,  Kordofan,  and  the  Bahr-el- 
Ghazal  and  the  Khartum  district;  he  was  the  most 
powerful  man  in  those  provinces.  Then  Gordon,  in 
his  crusade  against  the  slave  trade,  came  into  conflict 
with  him ;  his  son  was  killed  by  Gessi,  one  of  Gordon's 
lieutenants  ;  Zubeir  himself  was  seized,  exiled  to  Cairo, 
and  forbidden  to  set  foot  again  in  the  Sudan.  But  his 
influence  had  not  left  him ;  and  when  Gordon  went  out 
on  his  fatal  mission  he  urged  that  his  old  enemy  should 

1  He  died  at  Berber  in  1913. 


60  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

be  brought  back  to  aid  him  in  the  work  of  pacification. 
'  Send  me  troops  or  Zubeir.'  The  Imperial  Government 
refused.  Zubeir  was  kept  in  Cairo,  and  afterwards 
enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  England  in  Gibraltar. 
Eventually  Lord  Cromer  caused  him  to  be  released, 
pensioned,  and  returned  to  the  Sudan.  He  lived  patri- 
archally  amid  a  whole  tribe  of  his  kinsfolk  and  descend- 
ants, near  Khartum,  drew  his  pension,  managed  his 
great  estates,  and  was  on  excellent  terms  with  the 
authorities,  albeit  he  had  a  still  unsatisfied  claim  for,  I 
think,  a  matter  of  four  millions  on  account  of  the  dam- 
age done  to  his  property  in  the  time  of  the  sequestra- 
tion. 

He  was,  when  I  saw  him,  a  brisk,  hale,  vivacious  old 
gentleman,  with  a  twinkling  brown  eye,  a  short  grey 
beard,  and  a  kindly  manner.  Four  score  and  one  were 
the  years  of  his  life,  but  he  was  alert  and  vigorous.  He 
scrambled  upon  his  donkey  unaided,  and  scrambled 
off  again  like  a  schoolboy  when  somebody  expressed  a 
desire  to  take  a  snapshot  of  him.  He  was  very  com- 
municative, and  did  not  in  the  least  mind  being  ques- 
tioned about  his  past  career  and  his  private  affairs. 
'Gordoun  Pasha,'  he  said,  was  the  best  Englishman  he 
ever  knew ;  he  never  believed  that  Gessi  had  Gordon's 
authority  for  killing  his  son  Suleiman.  He  denied 
that  he  was  a  slave  trader ;  he  found  the  trade  going 
on  when  he  took  to  organising  the  provinces.  Topics 
even  more  delicate  he  was  willing  to  discuss.  He  was 
asked  how  many  children  he  had  had  in  the  course  of 


From  the  oil  i«mii.l(  f>v  in>  Hon.  John  Collier. 

Field-Marshal    Viscount    Kitchener    ok    Khartum,    G.C.B., 

O.M. 


CONCERNING  POLITICS  AND   PERSONS  61 

a  much  married  life.  He  could  not  say ;  there  were 
some  twenty-six  alive.  And  wives  ?  One  does  not 
usually  put  that  question  to  a  Mussulman,  but  Zubeir 
was  a  man  of  the  world.  He  had  had  sixteen  wives 
altogether,  he  believed,  but  it  had  pleased  Allah  to 
take  several  of  the  ladies  from  him.  He  was  still 
engaged  in  supplementing  the  deficiency;  only  last 
year  he  had  taken  to  wife  a  girl  of  his  own  tribe,  the 
good-looking  and  intelligent  Jaalins.  Wasn't  he  a 
little  old  for  matrimony  ?  some  one  mildly  hinted. 
Not  at  all,  responded  the  gay  veteran  ;  on  the  contrary, 
he  thought  that  the  marrying  of  wives  tends  to  keep 
an  elderly  person  young.  Certainly  he  tested  his  own 
prescription  faithfully,  and  it  seems  to  have  agreed 
with  him.  Thus  did  this  fierce  old  fighter  end  his 
peaceful  days,  seeking  the  delights  of  domesticity, 
cultivating  his  gardens,  making  friends  with  the  new 
rulers  who  were  bringing  peace  and  order  into  the 
wide  sun-baked  lands  through  which  he  had  ploughed 
his  stormful,  man-hunting,  filibustering  way.  Com- 
fortably enough  he  reposed  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Pax  Britannica,  this  lean,  brown,  lively  veteran,  who 
might,  one  reflected,  if  things  had  fallen  but  a  little 
differently,  have  founded  an  Empire,  or  have  died  in  a 
dungeon,  like  many  an  Eastern  adventurer  before  him. 


CHAPTER  VII 
SOME  SUDANESE  PROBLEMS 

'Well,'  I  said  to  the  courteous  official  who  was  trying 
to  get  some  business  done  for  me  in  Khartum,  '  I 
suppose,  since  this  is  Saturday  night,  I  must  let  the 
matter  stand  over  till  Monday.'  'Not  at  all.  Come 
to  my  office  to-morrow  morning  and  I  will  arrange  it 
for  you.'  'To-morrow !  But  you  forget  that  to- 
morrow is  Sunday.  Surely  you  do  not  go  to  your  office 
on  that  day  ?' 

'Certainly  I  do.  My  office  is  open  on  Sunday 
mornings.  We  take  our  holiday  on  Friday.  This  is  a 
Mohammedan  country,  you  know.' 

And  that  was  another  new  light  to  me.  As  a  rule,  it 
may  be  said  of  the  Englishman  in  the  remote  parts  of 
the  earth,  codum  non  animum  mutat :  he  changes  his 
climate,  but  not  his  habits.  So  to  hear  that  he 
went  to  work  on  the  Sabbath  and  rested  on  the 
Friday  was  as  startling  as  if  one  had  learnt  that  he 
was  prepared  to  sit  down  to  dinner  without  a  dress 
coat  or,  at  the  worst,  a  dinner  jacket. 

The  task  of  the  Sudan  administrators,  as  I  have  said, 
is  that  of  creating,  or  reviving,  a  civilisation  out  of 
chaos.  They  have  many  difficulties,  and  one  great 
advantage.     The  ruin  wrought  by  the  Mahdist  move- 

62 


SOME    SUDANESE    PROBLEMS  63 

ment  was  so  complete  that  they  can  start  with  some- 
thing like  a  tabula  rasa,  A  society  and  a  civil  polity 
had  been  totally  wrecked ;  only  the  foundations  were 
left,  and  the  new  rulers  had  a  fairly  free  hand  to  rebuild 
the  structure  as  they  pleased,  within  reason.  There 
is  a  large  field  for  experiment  and  for  bold  innovations, 
which  could  not  be  attempted  in  older  and  more  com- 
plex communities  with  a  highly  organised  structure 
and  an  unbroken  tradition. 

Some  fundamental  considerations  had,  however,  to 
be  taken  into  account.  One  of  these  is  the  existence 
and  prevalence  of  the  Mohammedan  religion.  The 
Sudanese  profess  the  faith  of  Islam.  Many  of  them, 
especially  the  negroes,  are  very  bad  Moslem ;  but  they 
are  not  on  that  account  the  less  fanatical,  and  we 
cannot  forget  that  our  presence  in  the  country  is  due 
to  the  most  striking  Islamic  revival  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  In  the  Sudan,  as  well  as  in  Egypt,  the 
Mussulman  religion  is  still  living,  and  its  hold  is  as 
strong  as  ever.  Its  votaries  believe  not  only  that  there 
is  one  God,  but  also  that  there  is  only  one  faith ;  those 
who  do  not  accept  the  teaching  of  the  Prophet  may  have 
many  virtues,  but  they  cannot  stand  on  the  same  foot- 
ing as  the  true  believers.  We  have  to  contend  against 
an  undoubted  prejudice.  As  Englishmen,  we  may  be 
respected  or  even  liked  ;  as  Christians,  there  is  a  feeling 
against  us  which  is  very  difficult  to  overcome.  The 
Egyptian  of  the  old  regime,  the  hated  and  oppressing 
'Turk,'  was  at  least  a  Mussulman  ;  we  are  'Nazarenes,' 


64  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

and  it  is  not  a  point  in  our  favour.  'Ah  !  if  you  could 
only  be  Moslem,'  said  an  old  Arab  Sheikh  to  a  British 
officer,  with  whom  he  had  been  spending  a  long  day  of 
travel  and  sport,  'how  glad  we  should  all  be.' 

Such  a  sentiment  demands  tender  handling.  Lord 
Kitchener  determined  that  his  new  Sudan  should  not 
be  troubled  by  religious  dissension.  He  impressed  it 
upon  his  lieutenants  and  coadjutors  that  they  were 
dealing  with  a  Mohammedan  community,  which, 
having  a  quite  respectable  religion  of  its  own,  was  not 
to  be  regarded  as  a  fair  subject  for  proselytism.  Noth- 
ing, he  believed,  would  do  more  to  set  Moslem  parents 
against  education  than  the  notion  that  it  was  to  be 
employed  as  a  means  of  turning  the  children  from  the 
faith  of  their  fathers.  Consequently,  the  instruction 
imparted  is  strictly  secular.  Conscientious  Mohamme- 
dans can  send  their  boys  to  the  Gordon  College,  the 
primary  schools,  and  the  technical  classes,  with  a  com- 
plete conviction  that  no  attempt  will  be  made  to 
undermine  the  foundations  of  their  faith.  The  obliga- 
tion rests  alike  upon  the  Protestant  and  the  Catholic 
clergy,  who  are  both  enjoined  against  giving  religious 
teaching,  except,  of  course,  to  the  members  of  their  own 
communions.  One  of  the  most  useful  institutions  in 
Khartum  is  the  school  for  girls,  which  is  much  appre- 
ciated by  an  increasing  number  of  Mohammedan 
mothers.  But  the  pupils  are  taught  nothing  which 
would  shake  their  belief  in  the  doctrines  and  customs 
of  Islam;   and  no  Mohammedan  husband,  who  in  due 


SOME    SUDANESE    PROBLEMS  65 

course  marries  one  of  these  young  ladies,  will  find  that 
he  has  unwittingly  acquired  a  convert  to  Christianity. 
On  the  same  ground  missionary  effort  is  not  en- 
couraged ;  indeed,  over  a  great  part  of  the  territory 
it  is  absolutely  prohibited.  After  the  reconquest  some 
of  the  missionary  societies,  British  and  foreign,  thought 
that  a  great  door  and  effectual  was  opened  in  the  Sudan, 
and  were  anxious  to  send  in  their  agents.  But  Lord 
Kitchener  put  his  foot  down  at  once.  An  able  and 
zealous  young  clergyman  came  out  from  home  to 
establish  an  Anglican  mission  in  Khartum.  'No,' 
said  the  Sirdar,  'this  is  no  field  for  missionary  enter- 
prise. But  I  should  think  there  would  be  abundant 
scope  for  your  energies  among  your  own  countrymen 
here.  You  can  stay  and  convert  them,  if  you  like. 
But  there  must  be  no  attempt  at  proselytism  among 
the  Mohammedans.'  The  embargo  extends  to  all  the 
northern  and  more  civilised  provinces  of  the  Sudan,  and 
includes  all  those  in  which  the  Arab  population  is  most 
numerous,  from  the  Egyptian  frontier  to  Fashoda.  It 
is  only  in  the  Equatorial  provinces  of  the  Far  South  that 
the  missionaries  may  teach  their  religion,  and  make 
converts  if  they  can.  In  these  districts  we  are  con- 
cerned mainly  with  true  African  negroes,  who  are 
practically  heathens,  and  have  hardly  been  touched  by 
Mohammedanism.  With  them  the  ulema  and  the 
minister  have  an  equal  chance ;  and  if  the  latter  can 
teach  them  the  Bible  before  the  former  gets  at  them 
with  the  Koran,  the  Government  at  Khartum  makes 


66  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

no  objection.  And  with  them,  it  may  be  added,  the 
missionaries  do  make  some  progress  ;  with  the  Moham- 
medans, even  without  the  administrative  veto,  they  can 
do  little  or  nothing.  The  Mussulman  world  is  rather 
less  likely  to  become  Christian  to-day,  than  it  was  300 
years  ago. 

Another  matter  in  which  it  is  necessary  to  move  with 
a  good  deal  of  caution  is  that  of  slavery.  Legalised 
slavery  ceased  to  exist  with  the  annexation.  No  man 
is  entitled  to  make  any  human  being  his  property  in 
the  Sudan  any  more  than  in  England,  or  to  constrain 
him  to  labour  against  his  will ;  and  any  person  held  as  a 
slave  can,  if  he  pleases,  claim  immediate  manumission. 
The  buying  and  selling  of  slaves  is  prohibited  and 
severely  punished ;  there  is  a  special  slave  trade  de- 
partment, with  its  own  police,  engaged  in  the  repression 
of  the  practice,  which,  however,  is  far  from  extinct 
in  the  remoter  districts.  Domestic  and  agrarian 
slavery  is  dying,  but  not  dead.  Many  thousands  of 
slaves  have  asserted  their  right  of  emancipation,  and 
converted  themselves  into  free  labourers,  much  stimu- 
lated thereto  by  the  excellent  wages  which  any  able- 
bodied  person  can  obtain  in  the  Government  workshops, 
on  the  railways,  and  in  private  employment.  The 
Khalifa  left  us  a  legacy  of  a  horde  of  female  slaves  when 
he  bolted  from  Omdurman,  and  these  were  all  manu- 
mitted, not  in  every  case  to  their  own  advantage,  for, 
after  all,  it  was  somebody's  business  to  feed  them  as 
long  as  they  had  owners.     That  illustrates  one  of  the 


SOME    SUDANESE    PROBLEMS  67 

difficulties  that  beset  the  process  of  abolishing  slavery 
in  a  community  long  accustomed  to  this  'peculiar 
institution.'  Peculiar  or  not,  it  has  existed  in  Africa 
and  in  Asia  from  time  immemorial,  and  society  has  been 
built  up  round  it.  To  overthrow  it  in  haste  necessarily 
produces  grave  economical  disturbance.  The  land- 
owner finds  himself  deprived  of  the  means  of  cultivating 
the  soil,  and  the  labourer  sometimes  discovers  that  he 
has  exchanged  a  stable  and  secure  existence  for  one 
that  is  uncertain  and  precarious.  He  may  even  learn 
in  some  cases  that  the  'cash  nexus'  by  which  he  is  bound 
to  an  employer,  only  anxious  to  make  the  most  of  his 
labour,  is  a  harsher  tie  than  that  which  linked  him  to  a 
master  who  had  some  interest  in  keeping  him  contented 
and  healthy.  Slaves  in  Africa,  as  in  Asia,  were,  as  a 
rule,  treated  with  kindness,  though  no  doubt  the  most 
fiendish  cruelties  were  perpetrated  in  the  process  of 
obtaining  them  for  the  market. 

With  the  slave  trade  we  can  have  no  compromise. 
But  with  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  actually  held 
as  servants  or  dependants  we  need  not  hurry  matters 
unduly.  A  good  deal  of  social  disorganisation  has  al- 
ready been  caused,  and  it  will  take  some  time  to  settle 
itself.  It  is  most  felt  by  the  powerful  land-owning  and 
cattle-owning  Arab  tribes,  who  have  been  accustomed 
to  rely  on  their  negro  serfs  for  the  cultivation  of  their 
fields  and  the  care  of  their  flocks  and  herds.  The  chiefs 
of  these  clans  are  still  highly  important  and  influential 
persons,  and  we  do  not  want  to  rouse  their  opposition 


68  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

unnecessarily.  This  history  of  the  past  conveys  a 
warning.  There  is  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  Gordon's 
impetuous  crusade  against  slavery  had  much  to  do  with 
the  final  rising  against  Egyptian  rule.  If  there  had 
been  no  Gordon  there  might  have  been  no  Mahdi. 
To  the  general  resentment  which  the  Khedivial  officials 
excited,  Gordon  added  the  opposition  of  all  the  vested 
interests.  His  furious  onslaught  upon  slavery  was 
regarded  as  an  attack  upon  private  property  in  one 
of  its  most  respectable  forms.  And  these  property 
owners,  great  chiefs  with  a  bevy  of  spearmen  at  their 
backs,  were  powerful  then,  and  are  not  powerless  now. 
So  it  may  be  hoped  that  no  impatient  pressure  from 
home  will  induce  the  Sudan  Government  to  move  other- 
wise than  gently  and  cautiously  in  this  delicate  business. 
Three  things  the  Sudan  needs  above  all  others  if  it 
is  to  become  rich  and  prosperous  :  Better  communica- 
tions, more  water,  and  abundant  labour.  Given  these 
things,  and  with  its  fertile  and  varied  soil,  its  fine  climate, 
and  its  vitalising  sunshine,  it  will  export  great  quanti- 
ties of  grain  and  cotton.  Under  the  old  Turco-Egyp- 
tian  regime  it  was  lamentably  deficient  in  all  the  three 
essentials.  Roads  it  had  none,  beyond  the  few  made 
about  the  towns  of  the  north  and  the  camel  tracks 
through  the  deserts.  For  centuries  it  has  done  without 
wheeled  transport  of  any  sort ;  such  commerce  as  it  had 
was  carried  on  the  backs  of  camels  and  donkeys,  and  the 
shoulders  of  men.  By  this  means  the  caravans  tra- 
versed  the   roadless   deserts,   and   somehow   contrived 


SOME    SUDANESE    PROBLEMS  69 

to  keep  up  communication  right  across  the  fiery  con- 
tinent from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  from 
Morocco  to  the  Equator.  Where  time  is  no  object, 
marvellous  distances  can  be  covered  by  the  legs  of  men 
and  of  animals.  The  African  is  a  tremendous  walker,  if 
you  give  him  time  for  his  journeys.  At  Suakin  I  met  a 
man  who  had  walked  all  the  way  from  the  West  Coast. 
He  was  going  to  Mecca,  and  had,  so  far,  been  seven 
years  on  the  route.  At  a  plantation  on  the  Nile  near 
Berber,  my  attention  was  directed  to  certain  of  these 
fellatah,  as  they  are  called,  natives  of  Nigeria,  who 
were  working  their  way,  in  a  similar  leisurely  fashion, 
towards  the  Holy  City,  and  would  no  doubt  get  there 
in  time,  if  they  did  not  happen  to  die  first.  But  this 
pedestrian  method  is  unsuited  to  modern  trade.  The 
caravan  is  out  of  date. 

It  is  being  superseded  by  the  railways,  which  the 
Sudan  Government  is  building.  In  these  enterprises  it 
has  exhibited  a  most  creditable  energy,  and  a  lofty  con- 
fidence in  the  future  of  the  country.  Of  the  line  from 
Wady  Haifa  to  Khartum  I  have  already  spoken.  From 
Khartum  the  Sudan  Government  railway  has  now  been 
carried  to  Sennar,  two  hundred  miles  up  the  Blue 
Nile,  a  town  which  had  once  a  great  trade  till  it  was 
captured  and  destroyed  by  the  Mahdists.  On  the  way 
it  passes  Wad  Mcdani,  a  large  native  town  with  streets 
of  straw-roofed  African  huts,  and  a  'Palace,'  with  fine 
gardens  for  the  Governor  of  the  Blue  Nile  province. 
At  Sennar  the  line  turns  westward  and  crosses  the  White 


70  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Nile  by  a  great  steel  swing  bridge,  wrought  by  skilful 
hands  in  the  English  north  country.  Thence  it  runs  on 
to  El  Obeid,  in  the  heart  of  the  Kordofan  province,  a 
place  as  remote  and  inaccessible  a  few  years  ago  as 
any  spot  on  earth.  Wild  tribesmen,  spear-armed  and 
riding  bullocks,  come  in  from  the  wastes,  but  they  are 
on  business  bent.  They  have  discovered  that  there  are 
merchants  in  the  old  capital  of  the  Emirs  who  will  give 
them  good  prices  for  their  gum,  and  grain,  and  hides, 
and  sell  them  coloured  calico  and  other  products  of 
civilisation.  They  understand  the  railway  and  are 
beginning  to  travel  by  it  to  Rahad  and  Kosti,  the  Nile 
port,  and  other  local  centres  to  which  their  occasions  call 
them.  Before  long,  I  dare  say,  we  shall  find  them 
suitably  arrayed  in  tweed  trousers  and  bowler  hats 
running  down  for  a  week-end  at  Khartum  to  do  the 
cinema-theatres.  At  present  they  are  still  primitive 
and  picturesque,  and  keenly  appreciative  of  improved 
possibilities  for  trade. 

From  El  Obeid  the  railway  will  in  due  course  pene- 
trate still  deeper  into  Central  Africa  and  perhaps 
eventually  join  hands  with  a  French  railway  from 
Timbuctoo  and  the  West  Coast,  or  with  an  English 
railway  from  Northern  Nigeria.  Long  before  this 
connection  is  achieved  the  direct  north  and  south  line 
will  have  got  on  to  Gondokoro,  where  in  due  course  it 
will  meet  the  Cape-to-Cairo  line  and  the  Uganda  rail- 
way, and  so  carry  us,  if  we  please,  to  the  Indian  Ocean 
or  the  goldfields  of  the  Transvaal. 


SOME    SUDANESE    PROBLEMS  71 

Another  extension  is  projected  from  Sennar  to  the 
Abyssinian  frontier,  through  the  fertile  district  between 
the  Blue  Nile  and  the  Atbara.  Already  there  is  a 
westward  extension,  much  lower  down  than  Khartum, 
branching  off  from  the  main  line  to  Egypt  near  Abu 
Hamed  into  the  Dongola  province  as  far  as  Kereima. 
Here  are  the  pyramids  and  temples  of  Merowi,  impor- 
tant and  interesting,  but  not  to  be  compared  with  those 
other  temples  and  pyramids  at  Mcroe  higher  up  on  the 
railway,  which  are  being  unearthed  by  Professor 
Garstang.  This  was  the  ancient  capital  of  Queen 
Candace,  with  the  Temple  of  the  Sun,  and  the  great 
Temple  of  Amon,  and  other  monuments  of  the  flowering 
period  of  Ethiopic  civilisation.  At  the  junction  of  the 
Atbara  with  the  Nile  begins  the  railway  to  Port  Sudan, 
of  which  more  will  be  said  later.  The  railways  and  the 
river  steamers  will  put  most  parts  of  the  territory  in 
direct  communication  with  the  sea,  and  so  with  the 
great  trade  routes  and  markets  of  the  globe. 

But  if  the  Sudan  is  to  load  the  trucks  and  freight 
steamers  with  sacks  of  wheat  and  maize  and  gum  and 
bales  of  cotton,  it  must  have  water.  It  is  nowhere  a 
quite  rainless  country;  but,  until  the  Equatorial  prov- 
ince is  reached,  it  does  not  get  enough  moisture  from 
the  heavens  to  produce  crops.  Most  of  the  northern 
part  looks  to  the  eye  like  arid  desert,  bare  and  brown  or 
staring  yellow ;  but  it  is  desert  which  needs  only  water 
to  bloom  with  verdure.  And  the  water  is  there,  flow- 
ing from  end  to  end  of  the  country  along  the  broad 


72  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

channel  of  the  Niles  and  their  tributary  streams. 
But  Egypt  has  first  claim  upon  the  perennial  waters  of 
the  Nile,  and  until  her  thirsting  fields  and  gardens  are 
sated  the  Sudan  must  touch  nothing.  Outside  the 
flood  season  the  entire  Sudan  is  limited  to  as  much  Nile 
water  as  will  irrigate  a  few  thousand  acres  —  a  mere 
speck  in  her  available  millions.  Not  till  the  works 
have  been  completed  which  will  increase  the  supply  for 
Egypt  will  the  Sudan  be  able  to  add  largely  to  her 
cultivable  area.  Thus  the  fate  of  the  two  countries 
is  linked  together,  and  the  fortune  of  the  one  depends 
upon  the  other. 

Even  for  such  crops  and  tillage  grounds  as  she 
owns,  the  Sudan  has  too  few  hands.  Labour  is  scarce 
and  dear ;  for  what  are  two  millions  of  people  in  a 
territory  more  than  half  as  large  as  India  ?  And, 
albeit  the  Arab  is  earnestly  devoted  to  matrimony  and 
the  Sudanese  are  prolific,  it  will  be  long  before  the 
depopulation  of  recent  decades  can  be  made  good. 
The  Sudan,  in  fact,  wants  men  badly,  and  it  does  not  at 
present  see  where  they  are  to  come  from.  There  is 
talk  of  increased  migration  from  Egypt ;  but  the 
Egyptian,  except  as  trader  or  official,  is  not  fond  of  the 
southern  territory.  The  fellah  would  prefer  to  till 
land  nearer  his  own  home,  and  there  will  be  plenty  of 
scope  for  him  there  when  the  increased  water  supply 
reclaims  fresh  sections  of  desert  in  the  Delta  and  on  the 
middle  Nile.  But  if  not  the  Egyptian,  who  then  ? 
Possibly  some  negro  tribes  from  the  interior  of  Africa 


SOME    SUDANESE    PROBLEMS  73 

may  move  northward,  but  not  much  dependence  can 
be  placed  on  them.  Sooner  or  later,  I  cannot  but 
think,  our  fellow-subjects  in  British  India  will  come 
in  to  fill  the  gap.  From  her  teeming  bosom  India 
could  spare  a  few  million  cultivators,  and  never  miss 
them ;  indeed,  they  are  straining  to  get  away,  and 
moving  towards  all  sorts  of  places  where  they  are  not 
wanted  or  will  do  no  good.  In  the  Sudan  they  would 
find  a  climate  to  suit  them ;  a  (virtually)  British  Gov- 
ernment to  protect  them,  with  no  white  British  colonists 
to  object  to  their  presence  ;  and  a  fair  opening  for  their 
industry  and  their  skill  as  husbandmen.  For  Indian 
Mohammedans  the  country  seems  specially  suitable ; 
and  it  might  be  worth  while  for  the  Indian  and  Sudan 
Governments  to  consider  whether  concerted  measures 
might  not  be  devised,  in  order  to  promote  a  moderate 
migration  from  a  region  where  agricultural  humanity 
is  rather  too  thick  on  the  ground  to  one  where  it  is  too 
sparse  and  scattered. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
SIMPKINSON   BEY 

'I  am  afraid  you  are  not  interested,  Captain  Simpkin- 
son,'  remarked  the  vicar's  wife,  with  a  certain  asperity. 

'I  beg  your  pardon,'  said  the  captain  hastily;  'I  —  I 
was  thinking  of  something  else  for  the  moment.' 

The  2nd  Battalion  of  the  Royalshire  Regiment  was 
At  Home  to  its  friends  at  its  depot  in  the  highly  re- 
spectable British  garrison  town  of  Cokechester.  The 
'County'  was  there,  and  the  fringe  of  the  county  — 
florid  local  magnates,  sporting  solicitors,  and  land 
agents,  anxious  matrons  keeping  a  careful  eye  on 
marriageable  daughters,  stout  rectors,  slim  curates. 
The  regimental  band  was  beating  out  the  famous 
regimental  tune  of  the  Royalshires  on  one  square  of 
enamelled  sward ;  flannelled  youths  and  short-skirted 
maidens  were  playing  tennis  on  another;  the  servants 
were  preparing  tea  and  ices  in  the  buffet  under  the  long 
marquee.  The  vicar's  wife  had  chosen  this  occasion  to 
impart  to  the  young  officer  —  he  was  still  young,  though 
there  were  lines  and  wrinkles  on  his  lean,  brown  cheeks 
—  her  ideas  on  the  proper  management  of  soup  kitchens. 
But  the  captain's  thoughts  were  far  away. 

As  the  good  lady  prosed  on,  under  the  mild  sunshine 
of  an  English  June,  his  mind  wandered  drowsily  to  a 

74 


SIMPKINSON    BEY  75 

different  scene  and  a  hotter  sky.  The  green  turf  and 
the  red  roofs  of  the  quaint  old  town  faded  away.  Before 
him  a  great  space  of  dusty  plain,  baked  and  parched 
under  the  merciless  glare,  stretched  away  to  where,  in 
the  dim  distance,  jagged  spurs  of  rock  stood  black 
above  the  shimmering  waters  of  the  mirage.  On  the 
edge  of  the  visionary  lake  a  long  string  of  camels  stalked 
slowly  across  the  horizon  line.  In  the  foreground  the 
dreamer  saw  rows  of  mud  huts,  roofed  with  corrugated 
iron ;  in  front  was  drawn  up  a  company  of  soldiers,  not 
the  trim  little  red-coats  of  the  Royalshires,  but  tall, 
lathy  black  men,  in  white  uniforms,  with  Martini  rifles 
and  long,  triangular  bayonets.  A  couple  of  young 
Englishmen,  in  khaki,  rode  up  and  down.  Presently 
the  company  sprang  to  attention,  and  rigidly  pre- 
sented arms  ;  the  while  another  Englishman,  who  was, 
in  fact,  himself,  emerged  from  the  largest  of  the  huts, 
mounted  a  white  Arab  pony,  and,  with  the  adjutant  at 
his  side,  and  native  officers  and  orderlies  in  attendance, 
rode  towards  a  group  of  stalwart  barbarians,  with 
spears  and  turbans  and  flowing  garments,  waiting 
humbly  on  his  pleasure.  For  Captain  Simpkinson  was 
Simpkinson  Bey  then,  Mudir  of  a  province,  with  a 
Sudanese  battalion  at  his  orders  ;  and  the  Sheikh  of  a 
great  tribe  of  the  Baggara  was  craving  audience,  to 
learn  his  pleasure  concerning  a  certain  matter  of  cattle 
raiding,  whereof  some  of  the  clansmen  had  been  guilty. 
The  captain's  errant  thoughts  went  back  to  other 
scenes  :    to  long  marches  through  the  desert  when  he 


76  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

was  bringing  up  a  convoy  of  camels  from  the  coast,  and, 
night  after  night,  for  many  weeks,  he  camped,  with  his 
beasts  and  his  Bisharin  drivers,  under  the  stars ;  to  the 
time  when  a  sudden  rising  occurred  at  an  isolated  post 
far  up  in  the  province,  and  he  pressed  on  breathlessly 
with  a  handful  of  his  Sudanese  on  mules  and  donkeys, 
wondering  if  he  should  be,  after  all,  too  late  to  save  the 
beleaguered  Englishmen  and  Egyptians  ;  to  awful  days, 
all  alone  in  his  tin-roofed  shanty,  with  the  thermometer 
at  1 20  deg.  in  the  shade  (if  there  had  been,  any  shade), 
and  the  khamsin  wind  blowing  up  clouds  of  red-hot 
sand  ;  to  brief,  delightful  holidays,  when  he  was  able  to 
get  down  to  Khartum,  and  enjoy  a  week  of  polo,  and 
wear  evening  clothes,  and  sit  long  on  the  cool  verandahs 
of  charming  villas  after  dinner;  to  busy  mornings  in  his 
mudiryeh,  where  he  worked  in  regal  fashion,  receiving 
reports,  issuing  commands,  giving  directions  to  a  whole 
staff  of  assistants,  subordinates,  clerks,  officials,  the 
unquestioned  autocrat  of  a  vast  district,  with  none 
greater  than  he,  save  the  Governor-General  300  miles 
away.  Now  he  was  drilling  his  company  of  languid 
Tommies,  and  trying  to  satisfy  the  major  and  earn  the 
approval  of  the  colonel,  and  discussing  soup-kitchens 
with  the  vicar's  wife. 

'  You  must  be  glad  to  have  got  away  from  that  terrible 
country  and  be  back  in  England,'  said  the  lady. 

'M  —  yes;  awfl'y  glad.  No  place  like  home,  you 
know,'  answered  ex-Bey  Simpkinson. 

But  he  said  it  without  conviction,  and  the  vicar's 


SIMPKINSON    BEY  77 

wife  was  confirmed  in  the  opinion  that  he  was  a  dull 
young  man. 

In  fact,  it  had  been  a  good  life  while  it  lasted,  if  often 
a  hard  one.  At  five-and-twenty,  a  subaltern  in  the 
Royalshires,  of  no  particular  importance  in  the  scheme 
of  things,  he  had  managed  to  get  seconded  for  service 
in  the  Egyptian  Army.  Here  he  was  at  once  a  bim- 
bashi,  which  is  a  major,  one  of  the  four  European 
officers  in  a  Sudanese  regiment,  with  mature  native 
captains  and  lieutenants,  be-medalled  veterans  some  of 
them,  who  had  served  at  the  Atbara  and  Toski,  obeying 
his  orders.  Being  a  smart  young  fellow,  with  a  certain 
organising  faculty,  he  was  presently  transferred  to  the 
administrative  side ;  and  thus  it  came  about  that  he 
found  himself,  at  little  more  than  thirty,  a  colonel  (in 
the  Egyptian  army  list),  a  Bey,  and  the  Governor  of  a 
province  twice  as  large  as  Wales.  He  had  all  sorts  of 
duties  and  responsibilities ;  he  was  commandant  of  the 
troops,  head  of  the  police,  home  secretary  in  his  own 
cabinet,  inspector  of  education  (so  far  as  there  was  any 
education),  chief  collector  of  taxes,  and  guardian  of 
public  order,  law,  and  morals.  Sometimes  he  pushed 
out  with  a  party  of  his  troops  on  a  miniature  campaign 
against  slave  runners  or  raiding  tribes  from  the  hills ; 
sometimes  he  went  down  to  the  frontier  and  engaged  in 
delicate  diplomacy  with  the  officers  of  the  Sovereign 
State  of  the  Congo.  Captain  Simpkinson  chuckled 
when  he  recalled  the  mingled  game  of  bluff  and  finesse 
they  had  played  against  one  another  out  there  on  the 


78  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

remote  border  of  the  Lado  Enclave,  very  far  away  from 
the  Foreign  Offices  and  the  newspapers.  But  they  were 
good  fellows,  that  young  Verhaeeren  and  young  Flan- 
drin ;  and  the  English  and  the  Belgians  had  had  some 
genial  nights  at  bridge  together  after  the  day's  wran- 
gling was  done. 

But  the  full  and  busy  years,  punctuated  with  wel- 
come intervals  of  leave  at  home,  rolled  out  swiftly. 
Simpkinson  Bey  was  only  let  on  lease  to  the  Sudan 
service.  The  British  army,  which  graciously  lends  its 
officers  to  Egypt,  requires  repayment  q(  the  loan ;  in 
seven  years,  or  ten  at  the  outside,  the  seconded  soldier 
is  reclaimed.  He  may,  if  he  chooses,  and  if  a  place  can 
be  found  for  him,  pass  permanently  into  the  Egyptian 
Civil  Service,  in  which  case  he  retires  from  the  British 
army,  and  abandons  his  pay  and  claim  to  further  pro- 
motion. Otherwise  he  returns  with  the  rank  which 
would  have  been  his,  in  the  normal  course  of  things,  if 
he  had  spent  his  years  of  absence  with  his  own  corps. 
The  result  is  occasionally  a  rather  emphatic  step  down- 
ward in  outward  dignity  and  actual  importance.  A 
man  may  have  been  the  ruler  of  a  province ;  he  may 
have  been  a  Bey  or  a  Pasha ;  he  may  have  been  the 
head  of  a  department  in  the  Khartum  Government, 
virtually  a  kind  of  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  or 
Secretary  of  State;  or  he  may  have  been  Kaimakam 
(which  is  Colonel),  with  a  full  battalion  of  900  men 
under  him;  perhaps  even  El  Lezva,  or  Major-General. 
And  after  all  this,  he  may  come  back  to  his  regiment  as 


SIMPKINSON    BEY  79 

a  major,  or  even  a  mere  captain,  with  other  men  to 
order  him  about,  and  only  the  dull  routine  of  garrison 
duty  to  occupy  him.  Simpkinson  Bey  might  have 
stayed  in  the  Sudan  Administration  if  he  had  wished ; 
he  had  done  good  work,  and  they  would  have  made 
room  for  him.  But  after  ten  years  of  dust  and  sun  he 
was  growing  a  little  tired  of  the  tropics ;  he  found  him- 
self thinking  rather  frequently  of  wet  English  lanes  and 
tangled  hedgerows ;  with  certain  blue  English  eyes  and 
rose-leaf  English  cheeks  also  a  good  deal  in  his  thoughts. 
So  he  'chucked'  the  Khedivial  uniform,  and  returned 
to  the  regiment,  and  the  company,  and  respectable 
Cokechester;  and  another  young  man  harries  the 
raiders  in  his  stead  and  keeps  the  Dinkas  in  order. 

If  Simpkinson  Bey  never  got  on  to  the  Staff  or  ob- 
tained an  administrative  appointment  while  he  bore  the 
Crescent  badge,  but  remained  with  his  battalion,  he 
would  still  have  found  plenty  to  occupy  and  interest 
him.  The  Egyptian  army  is  like  the  Indian  army,  in 
that  its  European  officers  are  in  close  and  constant 
contact  with  their  men.  There  are  no  English  non- 
commissioned officers.  'Sergeant  What's-his-name 
has  disappeared.  The  European  drill  instructor  has 
gone,  and  the  European  subaltern  ;  it  rests  with  the 
colonel  and  the  bimbashis,  or  majors  (the  English 
officer  is  a  major,  whatever  his  rank  in  the  home  ser- 
vice), to  drill,  train,  and  discipline  the  men  with  the 
help  of  the  native  captains,  lieutenants,  and  non-coms. 
There  is  some  difference  in  the  nature  of  his  task,  ac- 


80  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

cording  as  the  Englishman  finds  himself  posted  to  one 
of  the  battalions  composed  of  Egyptian  conscripts  or 
one  of  those  recruited  in  the  Sudan  by  voluntary  enlist- 
ment. The  work  is  easier  and  duller  in  the  former  case. 
The  fellah  of  the  Nile  Valley  has  no  martial  tastes ; 
he  is  so  little  inclined  to  be  a  soldier  that  he  tries  various 
devices  to  escape  service  when  the  lot  falls  upon  him  in 
the  annual  balloting.  Sometimes  he  borrows  £20  from 
the  Agricultural  Bank  or  the  Greek  moneylender,  on  the 
security  of  his  fields,  to  buy  himself  off ;  sometimes  he 
has  been  known  to  snip  off  the  top  joint  of  his  trigger 
finger.  But  in  the  ranks  he  does  very  well.  He  is 
patient,  obedient,  and  teachable,  a  good  marcher,  and 
really  fond  of  his  drill,  which  he  learns  with  a  machine- 
like precision.  He  is  very  amenable  to  discipline,  and 
gives  comparatively  little  trouble  in  camp  and  barracks  ; 
so  that  it  is  deemed  requisite  to  have  no  more  than  three 
European  officers  in  some  of  the  Egyptian  battalions, 
while  four  of  them  have  only  native  officers,  from  the 
colonel  downwards. 

In  the  'black'  regiments  there  is  always  an  English 
commandant  and  three  or  four  English  bimbashis. 
The  Sudanese  are  more  difficult  to  handle  than  the 
conscript  troops.  They  are  more  excitable  and  rest- 
less, more  impatient  of  routine,  a  little  too  fond  of 
native  beer,  and  the  stronger  liquors  of  the  West,  if 
they  can  get  them,  and  altogether  they  demand  more 
constant  supervision,  both  mthe  field  and  on  the  parade- 
ground.     Yet  I  believe  that  the  English  bimbashi  gets 


SIMPKINSON    BEY  81 

on  better  with  his  negroes  and  Arab  tribesmen  than 
with  the  Egyptians.  There  is  a  fine  manliness  and 
simplicity  about  these  blacks ;  they  are  soldiers  be- 
cause they  like  soldiering  (some  of  them  have  had  no 
other  trade),  and  they  often  develop  a  real  affection  for 
their  officers.  I  noticed  the  difference  between  the 
two  contingents  at  a  review  of  the  Khartum  garrison, 
held  before  the  Sirdar  one  morning.  The  'Gyppies 
made  a  fine  show,  for  they  marched  past  like  a  moving 
wall,  every  bayonet  in  its  right  alignment.  For  phy- 
sique you  would  find  some'of  the  companies  hard  to  beat. 
There  is  scarcely  a  stronger  man  on  earth  than  the 
Egyptian  fellah,  with  his  wide,  square  chest,  his  long, 
sinewy  back,  and  his  wiry  muscles,  developed  by  forty 
centuries  of  Sandow  exercises,  performed  with  the 
spade,  the  hand-pick,  and  the  shaduj  or  lever  with  which 
he  swings  the  water  up  from  the  Nile.  Compared 
with  him  the  Sudanese  often  seems  leggy  and  weedy, 
with  shoulders  too  narrow  for  his  height ;  and  he  does 
not  march  with  the  same  accuracy.  But  the  dash  and 
spirit  of  the  Sudanese  companies  were  unmistakable ; 
they  had  the  martial  bearing  of  men  descended  from 
generations  of  warriors,  as  many  of  them  are. 

And  then  their  music  !  By  dint  of  infinite  pains  the 
Egyptian  regimental  bands  have  been  taught  the  notes 
of  the  scale,  albeit  the  Egyptian  has  no  'ear'  or,  at  any 
rate,  an  ear  of  a  quite  different  character  from  our  own. 
He  drums  and  trumpets  in  the  same  fashion  as  he 
marches  —  mechanically,     though     with     a     stubborn 


82  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

precision.  But  with  the  black  it  is  otherwise.  He  has 
an  ear  attuned  to  our  melodies  and  harmonies ;  the 
soul  of  music  is  in  this  savage,  and  you  have  but  to 
teach  him  the  use  of  brass  and  wood  to  bring  it  out. 
There  is  one  specially  selected  Sudanese  band  at  Khar- 
tum which  plays  with  such  expression  and  instinctive 
feeling  as  would  give  it  a  reputation,  I  believe,  in  any 
European  capital.  They  perform  anything  well  — 
Viennese  dance  music,  comic  opera  tunes,  the  old  Scot- 
tish melodies  with  the  breath  of  the  heather  in  them 
that  make  the  Briton's  heart  beat  a  little  when  he  hears 
them  under  an  alien  sky.  And  they  have  not  forgotten 
the  indigenous  music.  At  the  close  of  the  review  the 
massed  bands  of  the  Sudanese  regiments  played  the 
columns  past  to  their  own  tunes.  It  was  a  wild  riot  of 
barbaric  sound,  savage  and  confused,  yet  blended  into 
a  kind  of  unity.  You  heard  the  voices  of  the  African 
forest,  the  wail  of  the  desert,  the  shout  of  the  battle,  the 
laughter  of  the  village  :  above  all,  the  notes  of  the  native 
drum  with  their  suggestion  of  menace  and  mystery. 
The  African  can  make  the  stretched  skin  speak,  and  its 
weird,  monotonous  voice  excites  him  strangely.  There- 
fore did  Mohammed  Ahmed  Ibn  Sayid,  the  Mahdi, 
warn  his  followers  against  this  indulgence.  'Abstain,' 
said  the  Puritan  prophet,  'from  all  amusements,  for 
through  prayers  alone  can  this  world  be  kept  in  peace. 
Abstain  also  from  the  pleasures  of  music,  do  not  beat  the 
big  and  small  drums.'  The  Mahdi  knew  his  people. 
He  knew  that  the  African  tribesman,   smiling,  good- 


SIMPKINSON    BEY  83 

humoured,  indolently  sensual  in  the  ordinary  way,  can 
be  stirred  to  paroxysms  of  animal  fury  when  the  right 
stimulus  is  applied.  That  is  what  makes  him  a  'first- 
class  fighting  man,'  on  occasion,  formidable  but  uncer- 
tain, and  needing  above  all  things  sure  leadership  and 
careful  handling. 


CHAPTER   IX 

CONCERNING  WOMEN,  SOLDIERS,  AND  CIVILIANS 

Our  friend  Bimbashi  Simpkinson  Bey  has  varied  du- 
ties to  perform  in  the  Sudan,  such  as  will  not  assuredly 
fall  to  his  lot  while  he  is  with  his  regiment  at  home. 
In  the  Sudanese  battalion  these  functions  are  more 
diverse  and  complex  than  in  those  composed  of  Egyp- 
tians. The  fellah  soldier,  a  conscript,  and  practically 
unpaid,  lives  in  barracks  as  a  bachelor;  his  wife,  if  he 
has  one,  stays  behind  in  the  village  with  her  husband's 
family.  But  the  blacks,  who  have  enlisted  as  pro- 
fessional soldiers  for  long  service,  bring  their  women 
with  them.  There  would  be  no  reliance  on  them  at  all 
if  they  were  separated  from  them  :  they  would  be  use- 
less for  duty,  and  would  probably  desert.  So  the 
authorities  make  a  virtue  of  necessity,  and  regard 
every  married  man  as  'on  the  strength'  of  the  regiment, 
so  long  as  he  is  married  in  moderation.  That  is  to  say, 
each  soldier  may  have  a  wife  in  the  lines  ;  if  he  avails 
himself  of  his  privilege  as  a  Mohammedan  to  have  more 
than  one,  he  must  keep  the  supernumerary  consorts  at 
his  own  expense  somewhere  else.  But  the  official  part- 
ner is  officially  recognised ;  the  soldier  is  granted 
quarters  for  her  and  an  allowance  towards  her  main- 
tenance and  that  of  her  children. 

84 


WOMEN,    SOLDIERS,    AND    CIVILIANS     85 

The  ladies,  in  fact,  form  part  of  the  regiment,  and 
may  be  said  to  be  under  military  discipline.  Neat 
rows  of  huts  are  built  for  them  within  the  lines,  which 
they  are  expected  to  keep  clean  and  in  good  order  under 
penalty.  The  colonel  inspects  the  haremat,  or  women's 
quarter,  from  time  to  time,  and  comments  unkindly  on 
any  exhibition  of  negligence  or  dirt.  The  women,  how- 
ever, may  be  said  to  have  their  own  commandant,  in  the 
person  of  the  sheikha,  a  female  of  discretion  and  mature 
years  appointed  to  control  their  conduct,  manners,  and 
morals.  If  any  tenant  of  the  haremat  is  disorderly  or 
disobedient,  if  she  quarrels  too  frequently  with  her 
husband  or  her  neighbours,  if  she  neglects  her  children, 
or  if  her  behaviour  falls  below  the  regimental  standard 
of  propriety,  the  sheikha,  having  reproved  her  with 
more  or  less  effect,  brings  her  to  the  orderly  room  and 
makes  formal  complaint  of  her  delinquencies.  The 
officer  of  the  day  makes  grave  note  of  the  case,  listens 
with  attention  to  the  accusation  of  the  sheikha  and  the 
defendant's  explanation,  and  takes  such  steps  as  the 
occasion  seems  to  demand.  As  a  rule  the  authority  of 
the  sheikha  is  vindicated,  since  this  military  duenna 
bears,  so  to  speak,  the  King's  commission.  Some- 
times a  woman  will  be  brought  to  the  orderly  room  on 
the  complaint  of  a  neighbour,  or  a  rival,  or  of  her  own 
husband  ;  sometimes,  also,  a  husband  at  the  instance 
of  his  wife. 

Delicate  connubial  questions  may  fall  to  be  adjudi- 
cated upon  by  a  youthful  bachelor  bimbashi,  who  in 


86  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

England  might  not  be  deemed  an  expert  in  causes 
matrimonial.  But  in  the  Sudan  he  is  a  man  of  the 
world,  and  his  decisions  are  accepted  with  reverence. 

'Oh,  thou  woman,'  says  Sergeant  Mohammed  Yehya, 
as  he  leads  the  erring  Zeinab  home,  having  obtained  a 
judgment  of  the  court  in  his  favour,  'did  I  not  tell  thee 
the  Bey  would  have  no  regard  for  the  word  of  a  light 
minded  female  pig  like  thyself  ?  Great  is  the  wisdom 
of  the  Ingliiz  !' 

Nothing  that  I  did  in  Omdurman  interested  me  more 
than  the  visit  I  paid  to  the  barracks  of  one  of  the  black 
battalions  at  that  town.  It  was  the  ioth  Sudanese, 
which,  under  the  command  of  its  late  able  and  popular 
kaimakam,  Lempriere  Bey,  had  reached  a  high  state  of 
efficiency;  indeed,  the  9th  and  the  ioth  Sudanese,  I 
believe,  are  regarded  as  the  two  crack  regiments  of  the 
Egyptian  army.  The  barrack-rooms  are  long  sheds, 
with  a  raised  platform,  on  which  the  soldiers  spread  their 
straw  mattresses.  As  we  went  round,  each  man,  in  full 
kit  (for  the  regiment  was  preparing  for  parade),  stood, 
like  a  black  statue,  in  his  place.  The  rooms  were  not 
quite  so  well  furnished  as  if  they  had  been  in  the  Marine 
lines  at  Portsmouth,  but  as  clean  and  tidy;  and  in  this 
dusty  land,  these  men,  brought  up  on  dung  floors  in 
mud  hovels,  had  been  taught  to  keep  themselves  and 
their  dwelling-places  in  excellent  order.  Fine,  soldierly 
men  were  the  Sudanese  non-commissioned  officers  and 
the  Egyptian  captains  and  the  lieutenants  who  accom- 
panied us  on  our  tour  of  inspection  :    one  of  these,  a 


WOMEN,    SOLDIERS,    AND    CIVILIANS     87 

bronzed  veteran  whose  broad  breast  was  covered  with 
medals,  for  he  had  faced  the  dervish  spears  in  all  the 
battles  of  Hunter's  and  Kitchener's  campaigns.  Some 
of  the  troops  were  to  be  conveyed  across  by  steamer  to 
Khartum ;  I  watched  them  march  down  to  the  river 
and  embark,  which  they  did  with  no  more  fuss  and 
noise  than  a  similar  number  of  European  soldiers  would 
have  made. 

After  we  went  round  the  haremat,  and  I  had  the 
honour  of  a  presentation  to  the  head  sheikha,  and  like- 
wise to  the  subordinate  sheikhas,  each  of  whom  is 
responsible  for  the  discipline  of  a  company.  Some  of 
these  latter  were  a  little  shy ;  each  of  them,  however, 
protested  that  her  own  company  was  one  of  exceptional 
virtue  and  decorum,  and  as  much  above  the  level  of  all 
the  other  companies  as  the  10th  Sudanese  were,  speaking 
generally,  superior  to  the  rest  of  the  army.  The  rank 
and  file  women,  dressed  in  their  parade  robes  of  (mostly) 
clean  white  cotton,  stood  at  the  doors  of  their  huts ; 
and  as  we  passed  by  the  end  of  each  row,  the  whole 
company  emitted  shrill  cries  in  honour  of  the  command- 
ing officer.  It  is  a  curious  sound,  something  between  a 
scream  and  a  whistle:  the  English  officers  call  it  'lou- 
louing,'  because  of  the  syllable  which  is  most  distinguish- 
able through  the  prolonged  piercing  howl.  It  has  a 
rather  mournful  effect,  but  I  believe  expresses  great 
exultation  when  given  with  energy,  as  it  certainly  was 
by  these  daughters  of  the  regiment. 

The  first  Government  of  the  Sudan  was  a  government 


88  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

of  soldiers.  It  began  with  a  conquest,  the  suppression 
of  armed  rebellion,  and  the  occupation  of  the  conquered 
territory  by  an  invading  army,  which  had  to  organise  an 
administration  from  its  own  resources.  The  officers  of 
the  victorious  force  supplied  a  contingent  of  officials, 
who  transformed  themselves  promptly  into  provincial 
governors,  tax-collectors,  district  magistrates,  and 
inspectors.  One  was  turned  into  financial  secretary, 
another  became  Minister  of  the  Interior,  a  third  Minis- 
ter of  Railways.  The  civil  administration  was  neces- 
sarily subordinate  to  the  military  :  in  an  Indian  dis- 
trict the  commissioner,  a  civilian,  takes  precedence  of 
the  officer  commanding  the  troops ;  in  the  Sudan  the 
Mudir  of  the  province,  himself  a  soldier,  is  the  com- 
mandant of  the  troops.  For  in  some  parts  of  the  Sudan, 
it  must  be  remembered,  we  are  still  a  garrison  rather 
than  a  Government,  and  are  by  no  means  in  a  position 
to  lay  down  our  arms.  That  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
we  must  go  cautiously  and  slowly,  and  why  impatient 
persons  at  home  must  not  insist  on  too  many  social 
and  domestic  reforms  in  a  hurry,  thereby  repeating 
Gordon's  mistake  and  playing  into  the  hands  of  another 
not  wholly  impossible  Mahdi. 

The  transition  from  military  to  civil  rule  was  brought 
about  gradually.  As  the  soldier  officials  retired  at  the 
end  of  the  term  of  service,  their  place  was  taken  by 
civilians.  There  is  now  an  Egyptian  and  a  Sudan  Civil 
Service,  recruited  from  young  university  men  nominated, 
on  the  recommendation  of  their  academic  authorities, 


WOMEN,    SOLDIERS,    AND    CIVILIANS     89 

by  a  Board  of  Selection.  The  selected  candidate  goes 
back  to  his  college  to  study  the  Arabic  language  for  the 
year;  then  he  comes  out  and  gets  to  work.  There  are 
many  attractions  in  this  service,  including  good  pay, 
abundant  leave,  and  a  pension ;  and  the  Board  of 
Selection  has  a  legion  of  the  prize  young  men  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  offering  themselves  for  the  few  posts  it 
offers  annually.  No  doubt  it  succeeds  in  getting  excel- 
lent specimens  of  our  academic  and  athletic  culture. 
As  to  how  far  these  graduates  are  doing  much  better 
than  the  picked  young  soldiers  they  are  intended  to 
supersede,  it  is  as  yet  too  early  to  say.  Military  opinion 
in  the  Sudan  itself  was,  I  fancy,  inclined  at  first  to  be  a 
little  sceptical  as  to  the  merits  of  the  young  civilians. 
That,  perhaps,  is  not  unnatural ;  besides,  Jones,  of 
Balliol,  and  Smith,  of  Trinity,  who  attained  the  supreme 
distinction  of  a  university  Blue,  and  possibly  also  the 
minor  honour  of  a  First  Class,  may  be  disposed  to  give 
themselves  airs  at  the  outset.  It  does  not  last.  They 
speedily  discover  that  these  unpolished  products  of  the 
orderly  room  and  the  barrack  square  have  learnt  a  good 
many  things  which  are  not,  as  yet,  imparted  beside  the 
Isis  and  the  Cam.  The  soldier  training,  for  instance, 
teaches  those  humble  but  necessary  virtues  of  order, 
punctuality,  and  discipline,  which  are,  perhaps,  as  use- 
ful for  practical  purposes  as  the  best  public  school  or 
university  'tone.'  If  Jones,  B.A.,  strolls  into  his  office 
with  a  casual  excuse  half  an  hour  after  the  appointed 
time  he  is  apt  to  meet  with  small  mercy  from  a  military 


90  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

superior,  who  has  learnt  in  the  regiment  that  it  is  an 
uncommonly  serious  matter  to  be  late  for  parade. 

Such  attainments  as  he  does  possess  may  also  inspire 
rather  less  respect  than  they  did  at  home ;  and  they  do 
not  always  impress  his  older  military  mentors.  One  of 
them,  a  veteran  of  thirty-seven,  who  held  high  office 
under  the  Sudan  Government,  had  no  esteem  for  the 
New  Civilian,  and  imparted  to  me  unfavourable  opin- 
ions of  this  young  gentleman. 

'I  am  not  a  university  man,'  said  this  unbeliever, 
'so  perhaps  you  can  tell  me  what  they  do  learn  at 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  that  can  be  of  the  smallest  use 
to  anybody  ?  When  we  get  them  out  here  we  have  to 
begin  teaching  them  the  simplest  things,  which  we 
stupid  British  officers  learnt  before  we  left  Sandhurst. 
We  have  to  teach  them  manners ;  I  didn't  mind  saying 
"Sir"  to  the  Colonel  when  I  was  a  subaltern,  but  these 
youngsters  don't  know  how  to  behave  to  men  from 
whom  they  have  to  take  orders.  We  have  to  teach 
them  book-keeping,  office  accounts,  map  measuring, 
how  to  docket  papers  and  draw  up  reports,  the  elements 
of  land  surveying;  surely  these  are  things  that  their 
schoolmasters  might  have  taught  them  before  they  sent 
them  out  to  us.  Of  course,  they  know  all  there  is  to 
know  about  Latin  and  Greek ' 

'Of  course,'  I  murmured. 

'Yes,  of  course.  But  what  on  earth  is  the  use  of  that 
here  ?  The  only  foreign  language  we  want,  besides 
Arabic,  is  French  ;    and  apparently  these  accomplished 


WOMEN,    SOLDIERS,    AND    CIVILIANS     91 

students  have  not  found  time  to  learn  French.  They 
can  play  cricket,  I  believe  ;  but  that  isn't  much  use  in  a 
country  where  there's  no  turf.  They  had  much  better 
teach  them  to  ride  decently,  and  to  shoot,  and  give 
them  some  military  drill,  ^which,  you  know,  we  have 
to  put  them  through  when  they  have  come  out.  It 
seems  to  me  that  their  real  education  only  begins  when 
we  take  them  in  hand.' 

It  was  perhaps  unduly  harsh  criticism,  and  some  of 
the  grievances  of  which  my  friend  complained  have 
since  been  remedied.  The  educational  deficiencies 
of  the  first  batch  of  civilians  are  now  supplemented  to 
some  extent  during  their  probationary  period  by  the 
authorities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  But  since  those 
seats  of  learning  are  laying  themselves  out  to  train  the 
servants  of  the  Empire  they  might  do  more  to  fit  them 
for  their  task.  It  is  rather  absurd  that  at  four-and- 
twenty,  after  some  fifteen  years  of  elaborate  and  expen- 
sive education,  Jones,  B.A.,  and  Smith,  B.A.,  have  to 
be  put  to  school  again  in  the  Sudan.  In  fact  the  youth- 
ful British  civilian  everywhere  —  not  merely  in  the 
Sudan  —  is  apt  to  be  more  schoolboyish  than  befits  his 
years.  At  twenty-five  the  young  soldier,  if  he  is  not  a 
mere  'waster,'  has  had  his  eyes  opened  to  the  respon- 
sibilities and  serious  duties  of  life.  But  the  graduate 
is  still  redolent  of  the  classrooms  and  the  playing-fields, 
of  boyish  studies  and  boyish  pastimes.  The  Sudan,  by 
the  way,  is  pretty  well  supplied  with  university  Blues, 
but  they  are  not  always  appreciated  as  they  deserve* 


92  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Not  long  ago  the  most  coerulean  of  all  Blues  came  out 
to  the  country.  He  had  captained  the  eleven  at  Lord's  ; 
he  had  played  for  England  ;  he  had  made  a  great  innings 
somewhere  which  caused  the  cricket  reporters  to  grow 
breathless  with  rapture  ;  his  bowling  had  been  analysed 
with  mathematical  exactitude,  and  the  sporting  papers 
kept  libellous  stereotype  portraits  of  him  ready  for  use. 
This  hero  was  at  his  first  afternoon  party  in  Khartum ; 
and  a  lady,  a  very  young  and  pretty  and  sporting  lady, 
was  giving  him  tea.  By  way  of  making  conversation, 
she  asked  him  if  he  liked  polo ;  but  he  had  to  confess 
that  he  was  an  indifferent  performer  on  a  horse.  Did 
he  care  for  shooting  ?  No  ;  he  was  not  a  shot.  Then, 
in  the  faint  hope  of  finding  some  topic  to  interest  him, 
she  said  sweetly:  'Do  you  play  cricket  at  all,  Mr. 
Blenkinsopp  ?'  I  do  not  know  how  Blenkinsopp  took 
it;  but  if  he  was  a  young  man  of  sense  it  should  have 
done  him  a  great  deal  of  good.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
these  officials  soon  adapt  themselves  to  the  ways  of 
the  country,  and  on  the  whole,  I  believe,  are  doing  well ; 
and  they  are  providing  the  Sudan  with  a  capable  and 
competent  civil  bureaucracy.  The  natives  will  have  no 
reason  to  regret  the  supersession  of  the  military  adminis- 
trators. But  these  latter  deserve  their  gratitude  —  and 
the  gratitude  of  their  countrymen  and  the  civilised 
world  generally  —  for  the  manner  in  which  they  piloted 
the  Sudan  ship  of  state  into  smooth  water  during  the 
years  when  it  was  rolling  in  the  trough  of  the  storm. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  NEW  GATE  OF  AFRICA 

Rather  more  than  seven  years  ago  an  event  occurred 
which  was  hardly  noticed  in  the  English  newspapers, 
though  few  happenings  of  the  time  were  of  more  impor- 
tance with  respect  to  the  future. 

In  January  1906,  Lord  Cromer,  accompanied  by  the 
Governor-General  of  the  Sudan,  by  a  bevy  of  officials, 
and  by  guards  of  honour  of  bluejackets,  marines,  and 
British  and  Egyptian  infantry,  opened  the  Nile-Red- 
Sea  Railway  at  Port  Sudan. 

In  January  1907,  Lord  Cromer's  successor,  Sir  Eldon 
Gorst,  visited  the  same  locality  to  note  what  had  been 
done  in  the  interval.  He  declared  himself  amazed  at 
the  substantial  and  rapid  progress  which  had  been  made 
under  the  direction  of  the  British  officers  and  officials 
who  control  the  affairs  of  the  Red  Sea  province. 

The  progress  went  on  steadily  and  swiftly  for  the  next 
five  years ;  and  in  January  191 2,  the  King  and  Queen, 
on  their  way  home  from  India,  landed  at  Port  Sudan, 
were  received  with  due  ceremony  at  that  thriving  town, 
travelled  some  distance  up  the  country  as  far  as  Sinkat 
—  once  a  place  of  unhappy  memories  in  the  days  of  the 
Mahdist    fury  —  and    there    held    a    review   of   native 

93 


94  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

troops  and  tribesmen,  in  which  representatives  of  all 
the  local  clans  and  peoples,  Arab  and  negro,  black  and 
brown,  Mussulman  and  pagan,  were  present.  Then 
perhaps  for  the  first  time  some  consciousness  of  the 
work  that  is  being  done  at  this  point  on  the  Red  Sea 
coast  came  upon  those  Britons  at  home  who  before 
that  scarcely  knew  where  Port  Sudan  was. 

Not  many  people,  unless  they  have  actually  passed 
through  it,  have  any  conception  of  the  activity  dis- 
played in  this  remote  corner  of  the  territory.  Until  I 
went  to  Port  Sudan  myself,  though  I  had  heard  a  good 
deal  about  it  in  Khartum,  I  had  no  idea  that  the  develop- 
ment of  a  great  commercial  emporium  and  port  of  call 
was  being  carried  out  on  this  remarkable  scale.  I 
expected  to  find  a  railway  station,  a  few  shanties,  an 
improvised  quay  or  two.  I  found,  instead,  imposing 
wharves  and  bridges  of  stone  and  iron,  a  range  of  mas- 
sive warehouses,  cranes  and  loading  machinery,  some 
fine  buildings  already  erected,  others  in  progress ; 
streets,  squares,  and  public  gardens  planned  and  partly 
laid  out ;  a  busy  population  of  Greeks,  Italians,  Levan- 
tines, and  other  Europeans  or  quasi-Europeans,  doing 
a  lively  trade ;  an  excellent  modern  hotel,  small  but 
comfortable  and  well  managed  ;  and  many  other  signs 
of  activity  and  enterprise. 

Eight  years  ago  Port  Sudan  was  not  marked  on  the 
map.  There  was  only  a  miserable  native  hamlet  and 
the  tomb  of  a  local  saint,  which  latter  is  now  carefully 
conserved    in    the    precincts    of   the    new   coal-tipping 


THE    NEW   GATE    OF    AFRICA  95 

installation,  just  as  the  holy  rood  and  pulpit  of  the  old 
abbey  may  be  found  in  the  railway  goods-yard  at 
Shrewsbury.  There  were  no  Europeans  and  no  trade 
and  no  ships  nearer  than  the  ancient  Red  Sea  port  of 
Suakin,  crouching  behind  its  rocks  and  coral  reefs, 
thirty-six  miles  farther  down  the  coast. 

Port  Sudan  is  a  creation  of  the  railway,  which 
branches  from  the  main  line  to  Khartum,  a  little  above 
Berber,  just  where  the  Atbara,  the  first  great  tributary 
of  the  Nile,  flows  into  that  river.  It  is  a  railway  that 
had  been  talked  of  for  many  years  before  it  was  actually 
put  in  hand.  If  the  rulers  of  Britain  had  been  rightly 
advised  it  should  have  been  built  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
century  earlier.  There  was  much  discussion  as  to  the 
Suakin-Berber  Railway  and  the  Suakin-Berber  route 
in  1884,  when  the  relief  of  Gordon  was  being  considered, 
and  those  who  knew  the  country  best  held  that  the 
expedition  should  have  gone  that  way.  Lord  Wolseley, 
for  some  reason,  took  a  different  view,  and  the  Govern- 
ment, at  his  instance,  committed  itself  to  the  gigantic 
boating  trip  up  the  Nile.  Nobody,  I  suppose,  now 
doubts  that  this  was  a  grave  error,  for  which  we  paid 
dearly.  The  mistake  was  partly  acknowledged  by  its 
author,  who,  after  the  abandonment  of  Khartum, 
formed  a  half-hearted  project  to  carry  the  railway  from 
the  coast  to  Berber.  A  highly  expensive  equipment  of 
plant,  rolling  stock,  permanent  way,  and  locomotives 
was  ordered  at  Woolwich  and  shipped  out  to  Suakin. 
Vestiges  of  it  may  still  be  seen  forlornly  rusting  in  the 


96  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

scrub  and  desert ;  for  England  presently  found  herself 
in  difficulties  with  Russia  on  the  Afghan  frontier,  and  in 
the  war-scare  the  Suakin-Berber  Railway  was  dropped 
and  forgotten  for  many  years.  At  length,  in  the  fulness 
of  time,  it  was  taken  up  by  the  engineers  of  the  Sudan 
Government  and  brought  to  completion. 

Its  terminus  was  changed.  Suakin,  the  outlet  for 
centuries  of  the  pilgrim  route  from  Inner  Africa  to 
Mecca,  the  last  remnant  of  the  old  Egyptian  dominion 
in  the  Sudan,  on  which  the  Crescent  banner  was  kept 
flying  all  through  the  Mahdist  insurrection,  is  a  pictu- 
resque town  with  respectable  traditions.  But  it  has  a 
hopelessly  bad  roadstead,  encumbered  by  rocks  and 
shoals  ;  and  it  has  no  fresh  water  save  such  as  is  brought 
in  by  skins  and  metal  casks  on  the  humps  of  camels. 
Instead  of  spending  vast  sums  upon  the  attempt,  which 
could  never  have  been  completely  successful,  to  convert 
Suakin  into  a  port  more  or  less  fit  for  modern  shipping, 
the  Government  engineers  preferred  to  deal  with  one 
that  lay  ready  to  hand.  By  the  tomb  of  Sheikh  Bar- 
ghut  they  found  a  deep  inlet  from  the  sea,  a  splendid 
natural  harbour,  which  ships  can  enter  at  all  hours  of 
the  day  and  night,  and  in  which  steamers  drawing 
thirty  feet  of  water  can  be  moored  in  safety.  They 
christened  it  Port  Sudan,  brought  the  railway  there  — 
with  a  junction  and  branch  line  to  Suakin  —  and  de- 
liberately set  about  to  prepare  the  new  entrepot  for 
the  destinies  that  await  it. 

The  work  had  to  be  done  from  the  very  foundation ; 


THE    NEW   GATE    OF   AFRICA  97 

there  was  nothing  to  go  upon.  Port  Sudan  is  the 
artificial  creation  of  man's  hands  and  brains,  as  Port 
Harcourt  will  be,  the  new  harbour  of  Southern  Nigeria, 
which  will  presently  come  into  being  on  the  other  side  of 
Africa.  Even  as  the  Nigerian  fiord  is  to-day,  so  was  the 
Red  Sea  inlet,  when  the  pioneers  came  down  upon  it 
from  the  Nile  :  a  place  left  through  the  centuries  to 
unheeding  Nature,  which  even  savagedom  had  passed 
by.  It  was  planted,  staked  out,  settled,  populated,  as 
rapidly  as  any  mushroom  mining  or  transport  town  in 
the  Western  States  of  America,  and  it  has  sprung  up 
more  quickly.  But  it  is  not  the  accidental  result  of  a 
sudden  rush,  or  the  haphazard  agglomeration  of  pioneers 
and  prospectors.  It  is  all  the  outcome  of  conscious 
design.  Everything  belonged  to  the  Government, 
and  everything  has  been  done  by  the  Government. 
The  place  has  not  grown,  it  has  been  made.  It  started, 
as  towns  do  not  usually  start,  with  a  regular  plan  and 
a  definite  scheme  of  construction  and  location.  The 
engineers  and  surveyors  and  land  agents  of  the  adminis- 
tration took  pencil  and  compasses  and  tracing  paper  in 
hand,  and  said  :  'Here  we  will  have  our  wharves ;  here 
our  docks,  quays,  cranes,  warehouses  ;  here  our  public 
buildings ;  here  our  shops  and  offices  ;  here  our  residen- 
tial quarter;  here  our  main  thoroughfares;  here  our 
side  streets  ;  here  our  gardens  and  recreation  grounds.' 
Some  of  those  who  are  concerned  with  municipal  affairs 
in  other  places  may  deem  them  fortunate  in  their 
opportunity.     I  served  for  several  arduous  years  of  my 


98  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

life  on  the  committees  of  the  London  County  Council, 
and  at  times,  when  we  were  puzzling  over  tramway 
routes  and  street  improvements,  I  caught  myself 
impiously  wishing  that  another  Great  Fire  of  London 
might  make  a  clean  sweep  of  everything,  and  allow  us 
to  start  fresh  and  fair. 

I  made  my  journey  to  Port  Sudan  by  the  Atbara 
route.  You  can  go  comfortably  by  sea  —  it  is  but  two 
days  from  Suez,  and  there  are  regular  services  by  the 
excellent  boats  of  the  Khedivial  Mail  Steamship  Com- 
pany and  those  of  the  Austrian  Lloyd  and  the  North 
German  Lloyd  —  but  I  wanted  to  see  what  the  Suakin- 
Berber  Railway,  that  vision  of  the  Gladstonian  years, 
had  become  in  practice.  And  in  practice  I  found  it  a 
wonderfully  satisfactory  thing,  doing  great  credit  to  its 
constructors  and  to  the  officers  of  the  Sudan  Govern- 
ment Railway  Department,  by  whom  it  is  operated. 
The  line  is  well  laid,  the  engines  are  powerful  and  rea- 
sonably fast,  and  the  train,  with  its  sleeping  cars  and 
restaurant  wagon,  is  up  to  the  very  highest  standard 
of  modern  locomotive  luxury.  Indeed,  I  do  not  remem- 
ber ever  finding  myself  in  more  comfortable  quarters  on 
any  railway,  whether  in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  or  North 
America.  The  Sudan  Express  can  quite  safely  chal- 
lenge comparison  with  the  best  trains  of  the  Continent, 
the  United  States,  and  India.  The  whole  enterprise 
has  been  planned  with  a  large  ambition  :  the  work  of 
men  who  believe  in  the  future. 

You  feel  this  very  much  in  the  town  itself.     The 


THE    NEW   GATE    OF   AFRICA  99 

present  bureaucracy  and  autocracy  of  military  and 
civilian  officers  is  lodged  very  simply  by  the  waterside ; 
but  from  their  modest  mess-house  they  can  look  across 
the  harbour  to  the  long  and  lofty  stone  warehouses,  and 
the  solid  sea-wall  of  coral  blocks  on  which  the  new 
wharves  are  built,  and  the  gaunt  skeleton  framework  of 
iron  ribs  and  girders  by  which  the  colliers  will  unload  ; 
they  can  glance  up  the  estuary  to  the  point  where  the 
great  bridge  crosses  it,  a  steel  hinged  bridge  that  can 
be  lifted  out  of  the  way  by  the  mere  pulling  of  a  lever 
so  as  to  allow  ten-thousand-ton  steamers  to  pass  up  to 
the  docks  that  will  lie  above  it ;  or,  again,  they  may  let 
their  eyes  travel  a  little  way  seaward,  and  there,  just 
at  the  root  of  the  new  mole  and  breakwater,  they  can 
see  the  new  Mudiryeh,  the  residence  of  the  Governor, 
and  the  offices  and  law  courts  of  the  province,  a  hand- 
some building  with  an  imposing  air  of  solidity  and 
permanence.  Port  Sudan  is  waiting  —  waiting  for  the 
argosies  of  the  world  to  discharge  their  cargoes  on  her 
quays,  and  meanwhile  making  ready  to  receive  them 
with  a  fine  display  of  all  the  most  modern  appliances  for 
dealing  with  sea-borne  commerce.  It  has  cost  nearly  a 
million  sterling,  one  way  and  another;  and  one  cannot 
but  admire  the  courage  of  a  young  and  far  from  wealthy 
Government,  which  has  poured  out  this  vast  sum  in  the 
wilderness  to  bring  its  territories  into  touch  with  the 
great  highways  and  thoroughfares  of  maritime  trade. 
Will  this  audacious  confidence  be  justified  ?  Port 
Sudan  has  always  had  its  hostile  critics,  especially  in  the 


ioo  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Egyptian  Press,  who  maintained  that  too  much  money- 
had  been  spent  in  haste  on  a  speculative  enterprise. 
Whether  the  speculation  would  prove  successful  or  not 
depended  on  the  future  productiveness  of  the  Sudan. 
At  first,  though  a  good  deal  was  coming  in,  very  little 
was  going  out.  During  the  first  ten  months  of  1906  the 
imports  were  valued  at  £312,000,  largely  Government 
material,  railway  plant,  and  machinery,  while  the 
exports  only  amounted  to  £40,000.  But  as  the  Sudan 
develops,  the  wheat  and  cotton,  gum,  maize,  hides, 
coffee,  and  timber  will  be  railed  down  to  the  Red  Sea, 
and  coal  and  European  manufactured  goods  will  come 
up  in  exchange.  And  that  the  Sudan,  with  its  perennial 
sunshine  and  its  vast  area,  will  become  one  of  the  great 
agricultural-producing  regions  those  who  know  it  best 
do  not  doubt :  when  the  engineers  have  settled  the 
irrigation  question,  and  enabled  it  to  take  a  larger 
supply  of  the  fertilising  water  which  flows  by  its  swamps 
and  forests  and  thirsting  levels  on  the  way  to  Egypt  and 
the  sea.  That  consummation  achieved  there  will  be 
millions  of  acres  under  wheat  and  cotton  and  dhura, 
and  the  storehouses  at  Port  Sudan  will  bulge  with  bags 
and  bales,  and  every  shilling  spent  on  them  will  be 
repaid  many  times  over.  So  hold  the  official  optimists, 
perhaps  not  unduly  optimistic.  And  they  point  out 
that  without  its  seaport  the  Government  could  neither 
push  on  with  the  irrigation  works  nor  construct  railways 
in  the  interior.  The  cost  would  be  prohibitive  if  every 
ton  of  heavy  material  had  to  be  carried  two  thousand 


THE    NEW   GATE    OF   AFRICA  101 

miles  from  the  Mediterranean,  conveyed  by  railway  to 
the  First  Cataract,  breaking  bulk  there  to  be  shipped 
on  the  river  steamer  to  Haifa,  and  transferred  to  the 
railway  again  at  that  place.  As  it  is,  a  cargo  can  be 
taken  from  Liverpool  or  Antwerp  to  Khartum  (and 
presently  to  the  Abyssinian  border  and  the  Equator) 
with  only  one  transfer  at  Port  Sudan.  In  the  future 
the  Nile  route  will  be  used  for  passenger  traffic  and  for 
the  lighter  and  more  costly  articles.  The  heavy  and 
bulky  goods  will  come  round  by  sea  and  the  Atbara 
railway.  'Who  knows,'  said  one  young  enthusiast, 
who  had  laboured  in  that  moist  and  fiery  air  over  the 
creation  of  Port  Sudan  —  'who  knows  but  that  this 
place  in  twenty  years'  time  may  not  be  one  of  the  great 
mercantile  towns  of  the  world,  a  second  Buenos  Ayres 
perhaps  ?'  'Buenos  Ayres  ?'  I  said.  'Yes;  why  not  ? 
The  Argentine  trade,  I  understand,  can  keep  a  city  of 
over  a  million  inhabitants  in  prosperity.  But  the 
Sudan  is  a  bigger  country  than  Argentina,  and  surely 
its  agricultural  prospects  are  as  good.' 

It  is  a  sweltering  little  place,  Port  Sudan  :  with  a 
trying  climate,  damp  heat  in  the  winter,  the  glare  of  a 
sevenfold  furnace  in  summer.  It  lies  on  flats  of  salt 
white  sand  and  powdered  coral,  through  which  the 
estuary  draws  a  broad  ribbon  of  blue ;  and  it  has  its 
difficulties  about  water  supply.  But  it  gets  its  com- 
pensations, for  it  is  on  the  edge  of  the  mountain  land. 
Northward  and  westward  the  plain  is  closed  in  by  the 
olivine  walls  and  dimly  purpled  ramparts  of  a  mass  of 


102  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

rugged  hills,  that  rise  in  peaked  ridges  and  broken 
sierras  into  the  hard  metallic  dome  of  the  African  sky. 
The  lower  slopes  are  only  a  few  miles  distant,  and  on 
these,  I  take  it,  in  the  years  to  come  the  merchants  and 
magnates  of  Port  Sudan  will  have  their  villas  and  gar- 
dens, travelling  down  to  their  offices  by  motor-cars  and 
fast  electric  tramways.  Farther  inland  the  mountains 
rise  higher,  and  here  the  Sudan  Government  is  establish- 
ing its  Simla  in  the  hill-station  of  Erkoweit.  Up  there, 
in  his  Alpine  chalet,  amid  the  tinkle  of  running  waters, 
and  the  sight  of  rock  and  fell  and  green  turf,  the  tired 
toiler  will  be  able  to  leave  the  tropics  behind  him  for  a 
space,  and  return  to  his  labours,  braced  and  invigorated, 
without  the  expense  and  the  delay  of  the  long  journey 
'home.'  We  are  making  the  sun-lands  habitable  in 
these  days ;  and  thanks  to  modern  science,  modern 
transport,  and  modern  medicine,  Port  Sudan  will  not 
be,  even  for  migrants  from  Northern  Europe,  the  place 
of  intolerable  exile  and  perpetual  suffering  such  as  its 
situation  between  the  Red  Sea  and  the  desert  would 
have  made  it  in  the  past. 


CHAPTER  XI 
STATE   SOCIALISM  IN  THE  SUDAN 

When  I  left  England  that  fortunate  country  was  in  the 
whirl  of  a  furious  discussion  over  socialism  and  anti- 
socialism.  Bound  for  the  Sudan,  I  assumed  that  I  was 
going  'to  where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace'; 
and  it  is  true  I  did  not  hear  the  topic  mentioned  in  the 
territory.  Yet,  in  some  of  its  aspects,  it  was  rather 
frequently  brought  before  me,  and  I  often  found  myself 
in  contact  with  certain  phases  of  the  question  which  is 
agitating  our  domestic  politics. 

The  original  Government  of  the  Sudan  is,  as  I  have 
said,  a  Government  of  soldiers.  These  gallant  officers 
are  not,  I  take  it,  political  philosophers.  Most  of  them 
I  imagine  to  be  Conservatives  by  tradition  and  instinct, 
disliking  Radicals  and  Little-Englanders  and  Labour 
politicians.  If  they  had  any  opinions  on  these  subjects 
at  home  they  were  probably  against  'nationalising' 
anything,  against  interfering  with  private  enterprise, 
and  against  municipal  trading.  But  in  the  Sudan  they 
are  not  swayed  by  theories  ;  and  dealing  with  practical 
necessities  as  they  arise,  they  have  quietly  adopted 
several  large  items  of  a  system  which  some  people  wildly 
advocate  and  others  angrily  denounce  in  older  and  more 
advanced  communities. 

103 


104  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

State  Socialism  is  in  a  condition  of  vigorous  activity 
in  the  Sudan.  Some  of  its  developments  were  inevit- 
able. The  Government,  set  up  in  1898  in  the  wake  of 
the  invading  army,  found  itself  planted  upon  a  ruin. 
Political  institutions  there  were  none ;  society  was  a 
chaos.  The  new  Government  had  to  be  everything  and 
to  do  everything.  The  most  ardent  individualist  could 
not  have  wished  to  confine  its  functions  to  the  main- 
tenance of  public  order  and  the  raising  of  revenue. 
There  was  no  room  for  laissez /aire  among  a  people  just 
released  from  an  armed  tyranny  and  theocracy,  who 
looked  to  the  new  Administration  for  the  first  requisites 
of  existence.  The  Government,  before  it  had  time  to 
turn  round,  found  itself  embarked  in  business  of  the 
most  varied  kind.  It  was  landowner,  housebuilder, 
purveyor  of  food  and  clothing,  storekeeper,  railway 
manager,  importer,  retail  trader,  agriculturist,  and 
tourist  agent.  If  it  wanted  steamers  to  ply  on  the  rivers 
it  had  to  build  and  man  them ;  if  it  desired  to  foster 
trade  in  the  country  it  was  obliged  to  supply  the  means 
of  transport,  if  not  actually  to  buy  and  sell  the  goods 
itself.  And  these  things  it  could  do  with  a  free  hand ; 
for  there  were  few  vested  interests  which  it  need  be 
afraid  to  traverse,  and  no  prickly  hedges  of  prejudice  of 
public  opinion  to  bar  the  way  against  bold  experiments. 
Some  of  these  it  tried  with  the  confidence  born,  perhaps 
of  youth,  perhaps  of  a  serene  unconsciousness  of  their 
full  import.  For  example,  it  instituted  a  Central 
Economic   Board,   intended   to  study  the  commercial 


STATE    SOCIALISM    IN   THE    SUDAN     105 

situation,  to  assist  traders  in  their  transactions,  to 
advise  importers  what  to  bring  in,  and  generally  to  act 
as  an  Intelligence  Department  for  industrial  affairs. 
The  members  are  high  officials  in  the  administrative 
service,  and  the  secretary  is  Mr.  H.  P.  Hewins,  the 
brother  of  the  secretary  of  the  Tariff  Commission. 
One  cannot  help  reflecting  that  in  a  somewhat  more 
important  industrial  community  than  the  Sudan  we 
rather  badly  need  a  Central  Economic  Board  and  are 
not  in  the  least  likely  to  get  one. 

The  Sudan  Government  believes  —  I  suppose  it  has 
had  to  believe  —  in  the  public  ownership  of  public 
services  and  of  various  other  commodities.  It  builds 
and  runs  all  the  railways  for  the  excellent  reason  that  if 
it  did  not  there  would  be  no  railways  at  all.  It  found 
itself  in  possession  of  a  fleet  of  gunboats  and  dispatch 
vessels,  and  it  uses  them  not  only  to  carry  mails  and 
officials,  but  also  to  transport  passengers  and  the  goods 
of  the  general  trader.  It  lets  out  steamers  for  hire,  and 
competes  with  Messrs.  Cook  in  providing  for  pleasure 
parties  on  the  Upper  Nile.  If  you  want  to  'do'  the 
equatorial  region  comfortably  and  combine  a  little 
shooting  with  a  glimpse  of  primitive  Africa,  you  can 
apply  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Sudan  navy, 
who  will  be  willing  to  lend  you,  at  a  moderate  price,  one 
of  the  Government  steamers,  with  a  crew  complete. 
The  Government  owns  the  ferries,  which  are  the  only 
means  of  communication  between  the  three  sister  towns 
on  the  Blue  and  White  Niles.     It  refused  the  offer  of  a 


106  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

company  to  build  the  tramways  between  Khartum  and 
Omdurman  —  in  Egypt  the  tramways  and  the  light 
railways  are  in  private  hands  —  and  built  the  line  itself 
and  operates  it.  Another  company  would  have  liked 
to  supply  the  town  with  water,  but  the  Government 
would  not  have  that  either,  and  preferred  to  be  its  own 
Water  Board.  It  also  provides  electric  lighting,  though 
whether  private  enterprise  would  have  been  willing  to 
take  up  this  business  I  do  not  know. 

But  it  is  in  its  dealing  with  the  land  that  the  State 
Socialistic  policy  is  most  marked.  A  great  deal  of  the 
extra-urban  soil  of  the  Sudan  belongs  to  the  Government 
in  default  of  other  ownership.  There  was  a  tendency  to 
assume  that  this  amount  was  larger  than  it  is ;  but,  as 
the  country  quieted  down,  numerous  owners  who  had 
disappeared  during  the  troubles  of  the  Mahdist  period 
put  in  their  claims,  and  many  complications  ensued. 
Thereupon  an  elaborate  settlement  investigation  was 
instituted,  and  is  now  proceeding.  When  it  is  complete, 
it  is  supposed  that  good  legal  titles  will  be  established  to 
most  of  the  land  actually  occupied  or  under  some  sort 
of  cultivation.  In  any  case  the  Government  will  be  a 
very  large  landowner,  and  it  holds  all  the  so-called 
desert  areas  —  which  will  not  always  be  desert  —  much 
of  Khartum  and  North  Khartum  and  Omdurman  and 
the  whole  of  Port  Sudan.  In  dealing  with  these  lands, 
the  Government  has  set  its  face  against  complete 
alienation.  It  objects  to  sell  freeholds,  and  prefers  to 
grant  leases  for  a  comparatively  short  term  of  years. 


STATE    SOCIALISM    IN   THE    SUDAN     107 

The  idea  is  partly  to  discourage  speculation  and  partly 
to  secure  for  the  State  the  'unearned  increment'  of 
urban  properties.  Not  long  ago  a  wealthy  syndicate  in 
Cairo  made  an  offer  to  develop  some  large  blocks  of  va- 
cant land  in  Khartum.  The  Government  declined  to  sell, 
though  it  was  willing  to  grant  leases,  which  were  refused. 
The  Sudan  was  threatened  with  a  minor  land  boom 
like  that  which  was  followed  by  so  disastrous  a  collapse 
in  Egypt.  Much  speculative  energy  was  ready  to  be 
directed  to  the  new  territory,  and  in  one  or  two  cases 
some  lucky  persons  did  contrive  to  bring  off  highly 
profitable  deals.  There  is  a  certain  site  in  Khartum 
which  changed  hands  at  £20,000,  having  been  bought 
two  years  earlier  for  £1200;  a  few  years  before  that,  so 
I  was  ruefully  assured  by  the  individual  who  refused  the 
bargain,  it  was  offered  for  £40.  But  the  Sudan  author- 
ities have  failed  to  discern  any  particular  advantage  in 
such  transactions,  and  they  discourage  them.  They 
profess  themselves  anxious  to  admit  the  genuine  settler 
who  wants  the  land  for  agricultural  purposes  and 
intends  to  develop  it  himself;  but  the  financier,  who 
merely  'sits  on'  an  estate  in  order  to  sell  it  when  its 
price  has  gone  up  with  the  general  rise  in  values,  they 
would  like  to  keep  away  as  long  as  possible.  In  the 
towns  they  think  the  fee  simple  of  the  land  should  be 
held  by  the  State  for  posterity.  There  are  to  be  no 
millionaire  landlords,  drawing  steadily  increasing  rents 
for  ever  from  the  Park  Lane  of  Khartum  and  the 
Regent  Street,  when  it  gets  one,  of  Port  Sudan. 


108  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

It  is  a  bold  policy  which,  to  me,  at  any  rate,  seems  the 
right  one,  particularly  in  its  urban  aspects.  But  I  have 
heard  it  a  good  deal  criticised,  not  always  favourably. 
Some  of  its  own  subjects,  and  some  of  those  who  are 
rather  anxious  to  become  its  subjects,  complain  that  the 
Sudan  Government  keeps  too  much  in  its  own  hands, 
and  allows  too  little  scope  for  private  enterprise  and 
initiative.  There  is  the  charge  commonly,  and  often 
justly,  levelled  against  every  manifestation  of  state 
socialism :  which  is  that  it  tends  to  give  undue  power 
to  officialism,  with  the  result  of  checking  progress  and 
deadening  commercial  activity.  One  very  able  busi- 
ness man,  who  has  himself  a  large  pecuniary  interest 
in  the  Sudan,  condemned  the  system  unsparingly.  A 
young  and  poor  country,  he  maintained,  could  only  be 
brought  forward  by  introducing  capital  from  outside ; 
and  the  administrative  policy,  he  insisted,  was  obstruct- 
ing this  fertilising  inflow.  He  assured  me  that  plenty 
of  money  was  available  for  investment  in  the  Sudan 
some  years  ago ;  but  the  attitude  of  the  Government 
was  so  unfavourable  to  investors  that  very  little  was 
done.  He  held  that  the  refusal  to  sell  freeholds  was  an 
error,  for  nobody  would  risk  his  money,  when  the  future 
was  still  so  beset  with  uncertainty,  on  a  mere  leasehold 
title.  Nor  would  companies  embark  on  trading  ven- 
tures, with  a  Government  always  ready  to  enter  into 
competition  with  them,  and  able,  moreover,  to  compete 
at  a  great  advantage  owing  to  its  possession  of  the 
means  of  transport  and  communication. 


STATE   SOCIALISM    IN   THE    SUDAN     109 

He  pointed  to  the  condition  of  Port  Sudan,  which  I 
had  not  long  quitted.  That  town,  as  I  have  said,  has 
fine  public  buildings  and  Government  warehouses. 
The  works  have  attracted  to  the  spot  a  considerable 
number  of  traders  and  shopkeepers  of  diverse  nation- 
alities. There  are  Greeks,  Italians,  Egyptians,  Arabs, 
Abyssinians,  Syrians,  and  others.  The  place  looks 
lively  enough  when  you  walk  through  it  at  evening, 
with  its  bazaar,  its  brisk  cafes,  its  pushing  little  shops. 
But  the  straight  roads,  wider  than  Northumberland 
Avenue,  the  cross  streets  intersecting  them  at  right 
angles,  according  to  the  excellent  Government  building 
plan,  were  fronted  by  one-storey  shanties  of  wood  or 
cheap  plaster.  Hardly  anybody  thought  it  worth  while 
to  put  up  a  substantial  edifice  of  brick  and  stone. 
Why  ?  My  friend  insisted  that  it  was  because  the 
Government  would  not  sell  the  sites.  The  Greek  and 
other  immigrants,  he  said,  wanted  a  security  which  they 
could  mortgage  before  they  would  sink  their  money  in 
expensive  buildings.  A  short  lease  was  valueless  to 
them  for  this  purpose,  and  they  would  not  hazard 
capital  over  it.  I  have  heard  the  same  explanation 
given  by  others,  and  I  believe  that,  in  part  at  least,  it  is 
correct;  indeed,  I  understand  that  the  uncompromis- 
ing refusal  to  sell  freehold  sites  will  probably  not  be 
persisted  in. 

One  cannot  but  sympathise  with  the  Sudan  Govern- 
ment in  its  dilemma  :  on  the  one  hand  it  is  anxious  not 
to  deprive  the  State  of  the  property  it  holds  in  trust  for 


no  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

future  generations  ;  on  the  other,  it  is  confronted  by  the 
risk  that  the  future  generations  may  not  come  into  being 
at  all,  unless  a  few  people  can  see  a  chance  of  themselves 
growing  rich  rapidly  or  laying  up  treasure  for  their 
descendants.  Thus  do  the  old  questions  reappear  in  the 
newest  societies  ;  and  thus  are  administrators  in  tropical 
Africa  finding  themselves  perplexed  to  find  a  practical 
solution  for  problems  over  which  we  are  still  theorising 
in  Europe.  After  all,  I  suppose  the  Norman  barons 
were  only  land  speculators  of  a  sort  in  the  conquered 
and  disordered  Anglo-Saxon  shires ;  and  the  adven- 
turous Hellenes  and  Syrians  of  the  Sudan  may  become 
the  founders  of  the  great  landowning  aristocratic 
families  of  the  coming  centuries.  History  has  a  way  of 
working  itself  out  on  extremely  threadbare  lines. 


CHAPTER   XII 
A  NOCTURNE 

When  I  left  Port  Sudan  I  came  back  over  the  railway- 
to  the  Atbara,  and  then  some  way  up  the  Khartum  line 
as  far  as  the  small  wayside  station  of  Zeidab  :  having 
been  invited  to  visit  a  cotton  plantation,  which  was  at 
that  time  about  the  most  important  example  of  agricul- 
tural development  on  a  large  scale  visible  in  the  Sudan. 
The  railway  is  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Nile ;  the  estate 
on  the  west,  some  miles  higher  up.  I  was  to  alight  at 
Zeidab  station,  where  I  was  to  be  met  by  my  hosts  and 
provided  with  a  boat  to  cross  the  river  and  conveyance 
on  the  other  side. 

The  south-bound  express  bustled  alongside  the  little 
platform,  and  left  me  standing  there  with  my  luggage 
piled  in  a  neat  mound  :  nobody  seemed  to  be  expecting 
me.  The  stationmaster  had  only  a  few  words  of  Eng- 
lish and  I  only  a  few  words  of  Arabic ;  but  with  the 
help  of  this  limited  vocabulary  I  was  enabled  to  under- 
stand that  a  hitch  had  occurred  in  the  programme. 
Owing  to  some  mistake  in  transmitting  or  reading  tele- 
grams, my  friends  at  the  plantation  had  been  led  to 
believe  that  my  train  would  not  arrive  before  midnight, 
whereas  here  it  was  in  the  afternoon.  What  was  to  be 
done  ?     The    stationmaster,    the    post-office    clerk,    an 


ii2  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

intelligent  young  Egyptian,  the  two  Arab  porters,  were 
sympathetic ;  but  it  did  not  appear  that  they  could 
give  effectual  aid.  If  I  had  been  at  a  Scottish  railway 
station  somebody  would  have  said  to  me  within  the  first 
five  minutes  :  '  Ye'll  maybe  no'  get  away  from  here  the 
night.'  As  it  was,  the  unwelcome  truth  was  broken  to 
me  in  the  Oriental  manner  by  stages.  I  told  the 
stationmaster  to  send  a  man  across  to  the  plantation. 
He  salaamed,  and  gave  voluble  directions  to  an  inter- 
ested negro,  who  departed  with  every  appearance  of 
alacrity.  Then  he  brought  me  a  wooden  kitchen  chair, 
from  the  whitewashed  room  in  which  he  slept  and  issued 
tickets,  and  I  sat  down  on  the  platform  and  waited. 

After  half  an  hour  or  so  I  asked  the  stationmaster  to 
expedite  the  proceedings.  He  gave  instructions  to 
another  native,  who  sprinted  off  at  a  very  fair  hundred 
yards  pace.  Another  half-hour  elapsed,  and  I  called 
upon  the  official  to  report  progress.  He  shouted, 
'Achmet  !  Mahmud  !  Osman  !'  and  various  natives 
emerged  from  nowhere  in  particular  and  dashed  away 
into  space.  I  inquired  how  long  it  would  take  these 
athletes  to  reach  the  plantation,  and  how  they  proposed 
to  get  there  ;  whereupon  it  was  gently  hinted  to  me  that 
there  was  not  the  slightest  chance  that  they  would  get 
there  at  all,  because  there  were  no  boats  on  that  side  of 
the  Nile.  In  effect,  the  whole  company  had  gone  no 
farther  than  the  river  bank,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
distant,  where  I  presently  found  them  standing  in  a 
group  to  watch  for  the  arrival  of  the  boat  from  the 


A   NOCTURNE  113 

opposite  bank.  I  demanded,  angrily,  if  they  saw  any 
signs  of  this  vessel :  for  it  was  growing  dark  by  this 
time,  and  my  unaccustomed  eyes  could  distinguish 
nothing.  They  peered  intently  into  the  shining  levels 
and  long  trails  of  shadow,  and  reported  that  the  felucca 
had  put  off,  and  was,  in  fact,  in  sight.  When  would  it 
make  the  landing  ?  After  a  spirited  debate  it  was 
decided  —  though,  I  think,  only  by  a  narrow  majority 
—  that  the  relieving  expedition  might  reasonably  be 
expected  in  forty  minutes.  Thus  encouraged,  I  went 
back  to  the  platform  and  my  kitchen  chair  and  dozed 
uncomfortably. 

Forty  minutes  passed,  fifty,  an  hour.  There  was  no 
sign  of  rescue.  I  roused  myself  and  looked  round. 
The  stationmaster's  room  was  closed,  and  the  post- 
office  ;  the  entire  place  was  empty  save  for  myself,  and 
dark  except  for  an  oil  lamp  burning  dimly  on  the  plat- 
form. I  made  noisy  researches  and  uplifted  my  voice. 
At  last  I  stumbled  upon  one  of  the  Arab  porters,  rolled 
up  asleep  in  the  dust  behind  the  station.  Him  I  shook 
into  consciousness,  and  sent  wrathfully  for  the  station- 
master.  That  officer  was  as  polite  and  benignant  as 
ever.  I  inquired  whether  the  boat  had  arrived.  He 
referred  the  question  to  Achmet,  who  transmitted  it  to 
Mahmud,  who  passed  it  on  to  Osman  and  to  another 
man  who  emerged  suddenly  from  the  unknown.  They 
all  with  one  accord  declared  that  no  boat  had  come,  or 
was  likely  to  come.  Then  I  asked  desperately  :  Why 
on  earth  did  they  tell  me  they  had  seen  it  on  the  way  an 
1 


ii4  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

hour  ago  ?  More  debate,  turning,  I  believe,  on  the 
point  whether  the  previous  resolution  had  genuinely- 
expressed  the  sense  of  the  meeting,  or  whether  it  had 
not  been  illegally  carried  by  the  casting  vote  of  the 
chairman.  Eventually  I  had  to  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  was  no  possibility  of  getting  away  till  the 
plantation  boat  should  appear  about  midnight  or  later, 
and  that  I  might  as  well  reconcile  myself  to  spending 
the  next  six  hours  of  my  life  at  Zeidab  station.  There 
was  nowhere  else  to  spend  the  time ;  there  was  no  vil- 
lage, not  even  a  house,  visible ;  the  nearest  hotel,  as  I 
was  aware,  was  about  200  miles  distant. 

I  went  into  the  stationmaster's  room,  made  him  put 
a  lamp  on  his  rough  deal  table,  got  out  a  book,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  make  the  best  of  things.  My  hosts  were 
genuinely  concerned  at  the  position,  and  so  guiltily 
apologetic  that  my  ill  temper  was  mollified.  The 
stationmaster  and  the  post-office  clerk  walked  in  every 
few  minutes  to  say:  'You  all  right,  my  mister,  boat 
coming  11  p.m.'  Achmet  and  Mahmud  and  Osman 
stole  softly  in  and  out  on  their  bare  feet,  and  leaned 
against  the  wall,  gazing  at  me,  and  smiling  soothingly 
when  they  caught  my  eye.  I  got  on  very  well  with 
these  good  fellows,  especially  with  Achmet.  We  con- 
versed chiefly  by  means  of  dumb  show,  and  I  discovered 
that  he  was  an  Arab  of  the  Jaalin  tribe,  twenty-two  years 
of  age,  married,  and  the  father  of  two  sons.  He  was 
tall  and  lithe,  with  well-cut  features,  and  his  smooth 
walnut-coloured  cheeks  were  scored  with  cross  cuts  like 


A   NOCTURNE  115 

those  honourable  scars  which  a  duelling  German  student 
bears.  In  Achmet's  case  they  were  tribal  marks,  and 
they  were  set  off  by  the  pleasantest  of  smiles  and  the 
shiniest  of  white  teeth.  He  was  a  notable  contrast  to 
his  colleague,  a  soot-black  negro,  as  well  as  to  the  pale 
Coptic  clerk,  and  the  little,  scrubby,  fussy,  well-inten- 
tioned Egyptian  stationmaster. 

Presently  I  was  conscious  of  hunger.  I  remembered 
that  it  was  many  hours  since  I  had  breakfasted  in  the 
train  beyond  the  Atbara,  and  that  the  comfortable 
dinner  for  which  I  had  reserved  myself  at  the  plantation 
house  was  clearly  not  for  my  taking.  I  made  pressing 
inquiries  after  food,  and  was  told  there  was  none  to  be 
had.  But  I  pointed  out  to  my  entertainers  that  obvi- 
ously they  must  eat  something,  and  that  a  little  of  that, 
whatever  it  was,  would  do  for  me.  At  this  the  deputa- 
tion retired  and  conferred  earnestly  in  the  darkness. 
Presently  the  Coptic  clerk  returned  and  said  they  were 
going  to  kill  a  hen  for  me.  I  remembered  now  that  I 
had  seen  some  skinny,  consumptive  fowls  scratching 
feebly  about  the  station  yard,  and  I  could  not  reconcile 
myself  to  assimilating  one  of  these  martyrs,  red  from 
the  slaughter.  I  therefore  declined  the  carnivorous 
banquet,  and  suggested  that,  since  there  were  hens, 
there  were,  perhaps,  eggs.  The  proposal  was  accepted, 
and  my  soul  leaped  within  me  when  the  stationmaster 
proffered  tea  and  bread  and  butter.  Presently  those 
viands  appeared.  The  eggs  were  the  size  of  marbles, 
and  as  hard  ;  the  bread  was  a  leathery  brown  substance 


n6  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

composed  of  dhura ;  the  butter,  made  of  buffalo  milk, 
betrayed  its  origin ;  but  the  tea  was  grateful  to  a  tired 
and  thirsty  drinker,  and  I  have  enjoyed  some  meals 
less  in  Pall  Mall.  Achmet  and  his  friends  gazed  on  me 
solemnly  as  I  ate,  and,  I  believe,  congratulated  them- 
selves with  the  thought  that  a  violent,  and  possibly 
dangerous,  lunatic  was  being  fed  into  comparative  calm. 

But  their  manners  were  perfect.  I  was,  I  felt,  much 
de  trop,  for  I  was  keeping  them  awake  for  hours  after  the 
stationmaster  would  have  been  asleep  on  his  angarieb  of 
string,  with  his  staff  snoring  in  some  corner  rolled  up  in 
their  cotton  wrappers.  Nobody,  however,  gave  a  sign 
of  boredom  or  hinted  at  retirement.  On  the  contrary, 
they  remained  awake  and  attentive,  and  gave  me  to 
understand  that  the  presence  of  a  wearied,  impatient, 
bad-tempered  Briton  was  really  a  distinguished  honour, 
for  which  they  could  not  be  too  grateful.  Every  now 
and  then  somebody  went  down  to  the  waterside  to 
obtain  tidings  of  the  felucca,  and  came  back  with  the 
entirely  apocryphal  information  that  the  missing  vessel 
might  be  sighted  at  any  moment.  I  had  got  long  past 
believing  them  by  this  time ;  but  I  appreciated  the 
chivalrous  courtesy  which  induced  them  to  keep  my 
spirits  up  by  artistically  contrived  falsehoods. 

In  the  end  the  felucca  did  arrive,  and  they  put  me 
and  my  luggage  aboard  with  care,  plunging  bare  legs 
manfully  in  the  cold,  moonlit  waters.  Zeidab  is  far 
beyond  the  tourist  sphere,  so  nobody  asked  me  for 
bakshish  or  seemed  even   to  expect  it.     The  station- 


A   NOCTURNE  117 

master  was  with  difficulty  prevailed  upon  to  accept  pay- 
ment for  the  tea  and  marmoreal  eggs,  and  Achmet  and 
his  friends  received  their  douceurs  with  the  gentlemanly 
unconsciousness  of  a  well-bred  English  butler  after  a 
country-house  party.  We  shook  hands  warmly  all 
round,  and  they  stood  long  and  looked  after  me  as  we 
floated  slowly  into  the  darkness. 

My  relations  with  Zeidab  station  were  not  quite 
finished.  After  two  interesting  days  on  the  estate  I 
had  to  catch  the  train  for  my  return  journey  from  the 
same  place.  Now  the  express  from  Khartum  for  Egypt 
passes  Zeidab  at  5  a.m.  To  start  at  three  in  the  morn- 
ing is  uncomfortable  anywhere ;  and  my  hosts  told  me 
that  the  better  way  was  to  leave  the  previous  night, 
cross  the  river,  set  up  a  camp-bed  on  the  east  bank  near 
the  station,  and  sleep  there  till  the  train  came.  Even  so 
was  it  done.  After  dinner  I  was  put  into  the  felucca 
again,  with  my  belongings  and  my  friend's  Indian  ser- 
vant to  look  after  me ;  the  lateen  sail  was  hoisted,  and 
we  glided  down  the  silent  river.  Those  who  know  the 
Nile  only  from  the  decks  of  the  admirable  steamers  of 
the  Sudan  Government  and  Messrs.  Cook,  or  even  from 
the  roof  of  a  fine  tourist  dahabiyeh,  do  not  drink  in  the 
full  spirit  of  voyaging  on  that  immemorial  stream. 
For  that  you  must  travel  by  night,  in  the  high-prowed 
sailing  boat  with  the  bending  bamboo  mast  and  the 
great  three-cornered  sail,  with  no  electric  light  and  no 
noisy  fellow-passengers.  I  lay  under  the  boom  half 
asleep,  while  the  Arab  boatmen  moved  softly  on  bare 


n8  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

feet  and  spoke  together  in  whispers.  There  was  hardly 
a  sound  save  the  faint  sigh  of  the  sail,  as  it  shook  in  the 
fluttering  wind,  and  the  muffled  moan  of  mast  and 
spars.  Like  the  ship  of  a  dream  our  bark  drifted  down 
the  strange  river  that  looks  as  no  other  river  of  this 
earth  looks  at  night,  with  its  flood  of  silver  bordered  by 
banks  of  ink  and  funereal  trees.  By  day  the  date- 
palm  of  the  Nile  waves  a  graceful  head  above  a  slender 
stem,  tall  and  stately  as  a  young  princess  ;  at  night  it  is 
a  grim,  dark  skeleton,  with  all  its  tossing  fronds  frozen 
into  stiff  black  arms  and  gaunt  pointing  fingers. 

Our  keel  slid  softly  into  the  mud,  and  I  was  carried  by 
strong  brown  shoulders  ashore.  I  chose  a  convenient 
spot,  under  a  big  sycamore  tree,  and  here  they  spread 
my  camp  bedstead  and  laid  on  it  a  fur-lined  sleeping 
bag.  It  is  one  of  the  pleasures  of  a  warm  climate  that 
you  can  enjoy  sleeping  in  the  open  with  only  the  sky  and 
stars  above  you.  But  for  those  who  commonly  lie 
beneath  a  roof  of  whitewash,  that  blue-black  ceiling 
of  the  tropic  night,  hung  with  lamps  of  gold  and  silver, 
may  be  too  splendid  for  sleep.  For  myself,  I  lay  long 
awake  and  watched  the  constellations  till  long  past 
midnight ;  and  awakened  again  early,  and  gazed 
through  my  light  screen  of  branches,  until  the  false 
dawn  stole  timidly  in,  robed  in  pearly  grey,  and  then 
flushed  rose-red,  like  a  bride,  to  meet  the  fierce  caresses 
of  the  sun.  Whereupon  I  looked  at  my  watch,  and 
called  loudly  to  my  Indian  attendant  slumbering  under 
a  contiguous  bush,  bidding  him  rouse  the  station  people 


A   NOCTURNE  119 

and  make  ready  to  depart.  It  was  well  I  did  so;  for, 
albeit  my  railway  friends  had  promised  to  ring  a  bell 
when  the  train  left  the  previous  station,  half  an  hour 
distant,  they  did  as  a  fact  delay  that  signal  until  the 
express  was  all  but  upon  us.  On  time,  and  its  divisions, 
the  African  intellect  is  still,  for  the  most  part,  vague. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

A  SUDAN  PLANTATION 

The  estate  of  Zeidab,  to  which  I  was  inducted  after 
and  between  the  incidents  described  in  the  last  chapter, 
proved  very  well  worth  visiting.  It  was  here  that  I 
made  my  bow  to  King  Cotton  in  his  North  African 
domains  ;  a  great  potentate  whose  sway  extends  from 
this  point  down  the  Nile  to  the  Mediterranean,  though 
his  seats  of  power  at  present  are  mainly  by  the  lower 
reaches  of  the  river.  But  the  time  may  come  when  he 
will  wax  mighty  in  the  Sudan  also,  and  when  tens  of 
thousands  of  black  labourers  will  be  pulling  the  woolly 
pods  from  millions  of  acres  of  cotton  bushes  to  feed 
the  spindles  whirling  hungrily  under  the  tall  chimneys 
of  Oldham.  The  British  Cotton  Growing  Association 
has  paid  commendable  attention  to  the  Sudan  :  though 
its  first  overtures  were  not  very  warmly  received,  and 
some  of  its  principal  promoters  were  more  inclined  to 
throw  their  weight  and  influence  upon  the  western, 
rather  than  the  eastern,  side  of  the  African  Continent. 
But  there  is  room  for  the  Sudan  as  well  as  Nigeria  ; 
and  if  the  former  can  produce  cotton  in  large  quantities 
it  will  not  want  for  markets.  Sir  William  Garstin 
thinks  that  at  present  wheat  must  be  the  staple  crop, 


A    SUDAN    PLANTATION  121 

and  that  cultivators  for  some  time  should  devote  their 
main  attention  to  this.  But  cotton  is  so  much  more 
valuable  that  if  there  is  water  available  one  cannot 
doubt  that  it  will  be  produced  in  conjunction  with, 
though  not  to  the  exclusion  of,  bread-stuffs. 

There  is  fine  cotton  and  wheat  land  all  about  the 
Atbara  region  from  Berber  upwards,  and  that  part  of  it 
near  the  Nile  has  a  welcome  air  of  fertility  and  verdure 
as  you  come  to  it  after  passing  through  the  desert 
country,  whether  your  approach  is  made  by  the  north 
from  Wady  Haifa  or  from  the  east  by  Port  Sudan. 
Palms  and  acacias  and  cactus  hedges  and  fields  of  that 
emerald-green  clover,  which  is  the  Egyptian  substitute 
for  grass,  greet  you  as  you  approach  the  Nile.  The 
district  was  well  cultivated  before  the  Great  Depopula- 
tion, as  the  ruined  villages  and  the  acres  of  roofless 
huts  in  Berber  attested.  The  capacity  of  the  soil  and 
the  scarcity  of  hands  to  till  it  suggested  the  idea  out 
of  which  the  Zeidab  estate  has  developed.  Some  nine 
years  ago  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt,  an  American,  came  into 
the  Sudan  with  the  ingenious  project  of  taking  up  a 
concession  of  cotton-growing  land  from  the  Govern- 
ment, and  importing  negroes  from  the  Southern  States 
to  work  it :  conceiving,  I  suppose,  that  it  would  be 
equally  beneficial  to  the  one  country  to  acquire  these 
coloured  gentlemen  and  for  the  other  to  get  quit  of 
them.  We  were  all  on  the  crest  of  the  Americanisation 
craze  in  those  years ;  the  Government  jumped  at  the 
notion,  and  the  New  York  millionaire  —  I  do  not  know 


122  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

whether  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  came  under  that  description, 
but  at  that  time  all  American  financiers  were  millionaires 
to  the  excited  British  imagination  —  obtained  his  con- 
cession and  set  to  work.  The  scheme,  however,  was 
not  very  successful  in  its  original  shape.  Those  who 
know  the  American  'buck  nigger'  best  would  hardly, 
I  think,  desire  to  see  him  planted  down  among  a 
primitive  people  like  that  of  the  Berber  province. 
Very  few  American  citizens  came,  and  those  who  did 
were  of  small  use  as  agriculturists,  and  were  soon  sent 
back  again. 

The  Zeidab  estate  changed  hands.  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt 
made  over  his  concession  to  an  association  called  the 
Sudan  Plantations  Syndicate,  which  has  a  good  deal  of 
London  and  South  African  capital  invested  in  it,  and 
an  uncommonly  shrewd  managing  director  in  the 
person  of  Mr.  D.  P.  McGillivray,  an  energetic  Scot, 
with  a  successful  business  record  behind  him  in  Egypt. 
The  property  has  succeeded  in  paying  excellent  divi- 
dends already,  and  it  will  continue  to  do  so  if  proper 
management  and  hard  work  can  avail.  It  is,  at  any 
rate,  a  striking  object-lesson  in  the  agricultural  possi- 
bilities of  this  part  of  the  Sudan.  The  original  conces- 
sion was  for  an  area  of  no  less  than  30,000  feddans 
(Egyptian  acres),  but  the  Syndicate  when  I  visited  it 
was  only  dealing  with  about  13,000.  They  have  to 
pay  the  land  tax  on  all  the  land  they  are  bringing  into 
cultivation,  and  they  do  not  see  their  way  to  work  all 
their  property  until  their  water  supply  can  be  increased. 


Lieutenant-General  Sih  Fbancis  Reginald  Wingate,  G.C.V.O. 


A    SUDAN    PLANTATION  123 

Here,  of  course,  we  are  in  a  rainless  district ;  the  grower 
is  absolutely  dependent  upon  the  Nile  irrigation. 

Now  the  Nile  rolls  past  the  lands  of  Zeidab,  turbidly 
rushing  up  the  banks  and  over  them  in  flood  time,  and 
flowing  in  ample  volume  during  the  remainder  of  the 
year.  But  that  great  store  must  be  tapped  sparingly 
and  under  due  restriction  by  the  riparian  tenants. 
Egypt  has  the  first  claim  upon  the  liquid  treasure,  and 
will  not  allow  the  supply  to  be  attenuated  before  it 
reaches  her  own  fields.  During  the  flood  there  is  more 
water  than  is  wanted,  and  anybody  is  free  to  take  as 
much  as  he  requires.  This  open  time  has  lasted  from 
the  middle  of  July  to  the  end  of  January,  and  in  those 
months,  technically  of  flood,  though  the  flood  has  gone 
by  well  before  the  end,  the  Sudan  as  well  as  Egypt  has 
unlimited  access  to  the  fertilising  fluid.  Since  my  visit 
to  Zeidab,  the  open  time  has  been  extended  for  one 
month,  so  that  the  water  may  now  be  drawn  from  the 
Nile  in  unlimited  quantities  for  irrigation  purposes 
till  the  end  of  February.  This  is  a  very  welcome 
indulgence  and  greatly  appreciated  by  the  cultivators 
of  the  dry  lands  of  Upper  Egypt,  Nubia,  and  the 
Sudan. 

After  the  'flood'  season  is  over  at  the  end  of  January 
(or  now  February),  the  farmer  is  left  to  the  'perennial' 
water  of  the  Nile,  white  water  which  by  this  time  has 
lost  most  of  the  rich  mud  brought  down  from  the  Abys- 
sinian hills.  This  perennial  water  is  carefully  guarded 
lest  the  amount  should  run  short  before  the  next  flood; 


124  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

and  for  the  whole  of  the  immense  Sudan  there  was 
allotted  no  more  than  the  quantity  sufficient  to  water  a 
bagatelle  of  10,000  feddans.  How  little  this  is  will  be 
seen  from  the  fact  that  the  Zeidab  estate  alone  was 
taking  40  per  cent,  of  the  total,  having  4000  acres  under 
cotton,  for  which  its  tenants  need,  or  at  least  prefer 
to  get,  the  perennial  water.  The  remainder  of  their 
land  they  must  keep  under  crops  which  do  not  require 
irrigation  before  the  middle  of  July,  and  can,  therefore, 
be  left  to  the  flood  water  when  it  comes  down. 

There  are  other  smaller  estates  in  the  Berber  province, 
in  English  or  native  hands.  The  patriarch  Zubeir 
Pasha,  of  whom  I  have  already  spoken,  was  a  large 
landowner  here  and  elsewhere,  farming  extensively,  with 
a  whole  staff  of  agents,  sons,  sons-in-law,  and  nephews 
to  help  him.  But  I  preferred  to  visit  Zeidab,  as  being, 
I  believe,  the  largest  concern  of  the  kind  in  the  Sudan, 
and  managed  according  to  all  the  latest  scientific  and 
economical  ideas.  There  was  at  any  rate  plenty  to  see 
and  much  to  wonder  at.  Considering  that  the  estate 
had  been  taken  in  hand  barely  three  years  before,  and 
had  not  been  in  full  working  order  for  much  more  than 
twelve  months,  the  results  attained  were  remarkable. 
The  place  had  an  air  of  settled  and  established  pros- 
perity; one  might  have  supposed  oneself  in  some  old 
plantation  in  India,  or  even  in  Louisiana,  rather  than  in 
a  district  which  five  years  earlier  was  running  to  waste, 
and  five  years  before  that  was  a  ravaged  wilderness. 
The  house  in  which  the  managing  director  lives  is  a  sub- 


A    SUDAN    PLANTATION  125 

stantially  built,  whitewashed,  brick  edifice,  rather 
reminding  one,  with  its  thick  walls,  two-storeyed 
verandahs,  and  lofty  rooms,  of  those  solid  bungalows 
which  the  old-time  merchants  used  to  build  in  Southern 
India ;  and  there  was  almost  a  Madras  compound  of 
blossoming  trees  and  flower  gardens  round  it.  Leading 
up  to  the  mansion  is  a  whole  street  of  stables,  store- 
houses, residences  for  the  engineer,  manager,  doctor, 
surveyor,  and  other  officials,  and  a  nice  wide  white 
street,  with  young  trees  planted  along  it.  The  fellahin 
and  cultivating  tenants  live  all  over  the  estate  and 
about  it :  some  in  mud-walled  villages  built  by  the 
Syndicate  itself,  with  as  much  attention  to  regularity 
and  sanitation  as  the  conditions  allow;  some  in  the 
half  deserted  hamlets  dotted  over  this  country ;  some 
in  tents  and  thatched  huts  or  tukuls,  which  they  put  up 
themselves  in  a  corner  of  their  field.  I  went  into  one 
of  these  residences.  It  was  the  merest  shanty,  of 
sticks  and  dried  palm  leaves,  with  absolutely  nothing 
in  it  but  a  few  cooking  pots ;  yet  outside  were  some 
full  bags  of  the  owner's  cotton  which  I  was  assured  were 
worth  not  less  than  £20  as  they  lay. 

One  of  the  conditions  on  which  the  Plantations 
Syndicate  holds  the  land  from  the  Government  is  that  of 
providing  30-inch  pumps  to  draw  up  the  perennial  water 
from  the  Nile  and  distribute  it  over  the  land  by  means  of 
a  system  of  canals.  On  this  estate  they  work  at  an 
advantage  over  some  others  farther  down  the  river;  for 
their  level  is  low,  and  it  is  seldom  necessary  to  lift  the 


126  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

water  more  than  two  or  three  metres.  Lower  down,  in 
Upper  Egypt,  at  the  great  estate  of  Kom  Ombo,  near 
Assuan,  I  saw  a  magnificent  pumping  apparatus,  which 
is  raising  water  nearly  sixty  feet,  and  pouring  it  into 
a  huge  network  of  watercourses,  including  one  great 
artificial  stream  some  thirty  miles  long.  It  is  a  wonder- 
ful piece  of  engineering  and  agricultural  science,  but  it 
involves,  of  course,  a  vast  expenditure,  and  it  could 
only  be  undertaken  by  great  capitalists,  able  to  sink 
their  money  and  wait  for  the  return.  At  Zeidab, 
however,  it  seems  they  did  not  have  so  long  to  wait. 
They  have  got  their  irrigation  system  complete,  one 
main  channel  intersecting  the  property  at  the  highest 
level,  and  dropping  its  waters  into  a  series  of  secondary 
and  third-rate  canals,  which  again  are  drawn  off  into 
the  numerous  minor  runlets  and  rills  that  pass  the 
vivifying  fluid  into  every  farm  and  through  every  field. 
The  cotton  crop  was  mostly  over  at  the  time  of  my 
visit ;  the  barns  were  full  of  the  cotton  wool,  ready  to 
be  carried  across  to  the  railway,  and  sent  down  to  Port 
Sudan.  The  young  wheat  was  well  forward,  and  very 
beautiful  it  looked,  rippling  into  waves  of  green  over  the 
level  meadows.  I  am  not  an  agricultural  expert,  but 
I  was  assured  by  a  visitor  who  is,  that  for  its  stage  and 
growth  this  wheat  was  as  good  in  quality  as  any  he 
had  seen  anywhere.  The  cotton  is  not,  I  believe, 
quite  up  to  the  standard  of  the  best  grown  in  Lower 
Egypt  —  no  cotton  in  the  world  is  equal  to  that ;  but 
it  does  not  fall  so  very  far  behind,  and  enables  the 


A   SUDAN    PLANTATION  127 

Syndicate  and  its  tenants  to  sell  at  a  price  which  gives 
a  very  fair  return  on  their  outlay. 

The  Syndicate  farms  some  of  the  land  itself  and  sells 
or  lets  the  rest;  and  maintains  the  pumping-station 
and  keeps  the  irrigation  system  in  order  and  under 
proper  control  both  for  its  own  farms  and  those  of  the 
tenants.  It  is  a  hard,  healthy,  energetic  out-of-door 
life  for  the  handful  of  young  Englishmen  and  young 
Scotsmen  who  run  this  little  colony,  where  already 
there  are  some  thousands  of  people  living.  Tenants 
are  coming  in  to  take  up  the  land  ;  Arabs  and  Sudanese 
from  the  Berber  district  and  Dongola,  fellahin  from 
Nubia,  a  few  shrewd  Greeks  and  others  from  Lower 
Egypt,  even  an  Englishman  or  two,  who  see  the  possi- 
bility of  making  money  in  the  new  country. 

Adult  male  labour  was  scarce  in  the  locality;  as  you 
went  through  the  villages  you  saw  many  women  and 
children  and  few  men.  For  the  people  here  are  of  the 
same  race  as  my  friend  Achmet  of  Zeidab  station  ;  they 
are  Jaalin  Arabs,  and  the  Jaalins  were  the  victims  of  the 
Mahdist  fury  at  its  worst  and  bloodiest,  when  it  was  just 
tottering  to  its  fall.  The  Jaalins  were  a  high-spirited 
and  rather  haughty  tribe,  who  thought  much  of  their 
pure  Arab  descent,  of  the  prowess  of  their  men  in  old 
frontier  wars,  and  the  honour  of  their  women.  They 
despised  the  swarthy  semi-negro  dervishes  from  the 
South,  and  submitted  to  the  Mahdist  rule  with  much 
impatience.  In  June  1897,  when  the  tramp  of  the 
Anglo-Egyptian  battalions  was  heard  beyond  Dongola, 


128  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

and  the  desert  railway  was  pushing  on,  the  Jaalins  re- 
volted against  the  Omdurman  tyranny.  Mahmud,  the 
Khalifa's  fighting  Emir,  swept  down  upon  them  with  a 
horde  of  dervish  spears  and  rifles.  The  Jaalins,  com- 
pletely outnumbered,  retired  into  Metemmeh,  fortified 
the  place,  and  held  it  till  all  their  ammunition  was  ex- 
hausted. Then  the  Mahdists  broke  in,  and  an  orgie  of 
brutal  massacre  and  mutilation  ensued.  Two  thou- 
sand of  the  fighting  men  were  butchered  as  they  stood ; 
others  had  their  feet  or  hands  cut  off.  The  chief, 
Abdullah,  was  taken  to  Omdurman,  and  left,  walled 
up  to  the  chin,  till  he  died  of  hunger.  The  dervishes 
devastated  the  whole  Jaalin  country,  killing,  plundering, 
and  maiming.  You  met  few  middle-aged  men  in  the 
Jaalin  villages  ;  only  young  men,  who  were  boys  eleven 
years  before,  veterans  who  were  old  even  then,  and 
women  and  children.  When  you  remember  how  the 
brave  Jaalins  were  treated  by  the  Khalifa's  savages, 
you  have  a  certain  satisfaction  in  the  thought  that  if 
we  were  just  too  late  to  save  them,  we  were  able  to 
avenge  them  ;  and  you  feel  that  among  the  swaths  of 
dead  lying  on  the  field  of  Kerreri  a  year  later  there  must 
have  been  a  good  many  who  deserved  their  fate. 

These  Jaalins  are  among  the  most  attractive  of  all 
the  Sudan  peoples  —  good-looking,  good-natured,  digni- 
fied, humorous,  and  thoroughly  likeable.  On  the  first 
evening  of  my  stay  at  Zeidab  we  went  for  a  drive  along 
the  wide,  sandy,  road  which  runs  through  the  estate 
northward  to  Khartum.     It  was  made  by  Kitchener's 


A   SUDAN    PLANTATION  129 

army  in  '98,  and  the  bones  of  the  oxen  killed  for  the 
bivouac  fires  were  still  whitening  by  the  wayside.  As 
we  scuttled  along  behind  two  fiery  little  Abyssinian 
mules,  through  meadows  dotted  with  clumps  of  trees, 
which  in  the  gathering  gloom  looked  park-like  and 
English,  we  met  an  upstanding  Jaalin  driving  a  fine 
young  bull.  I  asked  my  companion  to  question  this 
native  for  my  instruction.  The  Arab,  with  a  broad 
grin  and  a  roar  of  hilarious  recognition,  explained  that 
he  was  the  man  who  very  nearly,  but  not  quite,  beat  my 
friend  at  putting  the  stone  in  some  sports  which  had 
been  got  up  on  the  estate  in  the  summer.  The  Jaalin 
children  are  as  delightful  as  they  are  numerous.  When 
I  went  into  one  of  the  villages  with  my  camera  a  whole 
covey  of  them  tumbled  out  of  one  of  the  huts,  clamoured 
about  me,  grouped  themselves  to  be  photographed,  and 
chattered  and  pushed  at  one  another  like  young 
sparrows.  The  boys  were  naked,  brown,  shiny,  laugh- 
ing little  fellows,  as  impudent  and  knowing  as  London 
gutter-children  ;  there  were  one  or  two  small  maidens, 
with  bead  necklaces  and  rudimentary  skirts,  much  more 
demure  and  composed  than  the  lads,  whom  they 
ordered  about  rather  haughtily,  even  as  Gwendoline 
commands  Billy  in  Hoxton.  There  was  also  a  baby, 
who  put  his  fingers  into  his  eyes  and  wept  aloud  when 
he  saw  me  directing  a  strange  implement  upon  him  ; 
and  was  comforted  by  his  elder  sister  and  admonished 
into  silence,  and,  I  have  no  doubt,  informed  that  if 
he  failed  to  be  good  directly  the  ugly  man  would  have 


130  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

him.  The  young  Arabs  and  I  made  so  much  noise 
that  the  mother  of  some  of  them  (she  was  surely  too 
young  to  own  the  whole  brood)  came  to  the  door  of 
her  hut.  This  daughter  of  the  Jaalins  sustained  the 
tribal  reputation  for  good  looks.  She  was  tall  and 
straight,  with  large  eyes  that  shone  like  black  gems 
in  the  clear  brown  oval  of  her  face.  In  drapery  of  dark 
blue,  with  one  shapely,  silver-ringed,  arm  thrown  up 
above  her  head  to  shield  her  from  the  smiting  sun,  she 
stood  framed  in  the  doorway  regarding  our  doings  with 
grave  and  gracious  indulgence.  Before  this  noble 
type  of  antique,  primitive,  womanhood  one  felt  some- 
how ultra-modern,  crude,  vulgar. 

'You  had  better  not  photograph  her,'  said  one  of  my 
companions.  'These  Jaalin  women  are  particular.'  I 
had  no  such  intention.  I  should  as  soon  have  thought 
of  taking  a  snapshot  at  the  Duchess  when  she  stands  at 
the  head  of  the  staircase  to  receive  her  guests  in  her  own 
house.  No  'great  lady'  of  our  West  could  have  been 
more  calmly  dignified  than  this  Arab  woman  of  the 
people.  Will  her  children  and  her  children's  children 
be  like  her,  when  they  have  been  sent  to  our  schools, 
and  acquired  a  taste  for  cheap  finery,  and  learnt  to 
'hustle,'  and  grown  fidgety  and  self-conscious  ?  Shall 
we  end  by  turning  them  into  bad  imitations  of  the 
neurotic  town-bred  boys  and  girls  who  crowd  our  picture 
shows  ?  We  have  saved  them  from  the  spears  of  the 
savages  and  the  stripes  of  the  pashas ;  but  to  what  ul- 
timate destiny  are  all  these  Eastern  folks  tending  whom 


A    SUDAN    PLANTATION  131 

Europe  has  snatched  into  its  swirl  of  'progress'  and 
unseeing  change  ?  Who  shall  say  ?  Well,  at  least  it 
is  something  to  have  redeemed  them  from  slavery 
and  slaughter,  to  have  given  them  a  breathing-space 
before  the  New  Era  sweeps  them  along  its  tumultu- 
ous ways. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
LAND  AND  WATER 

In  my  visit  to  the  Zeidab  plantation  something  of  the 
importance  of  the  irrigation  question,  which  is  the 
question  of  questions  for  Egypt  at  all  times,  was  borne 
in  upon  me.  As  you  descend  the  course  of  the  Nile  you 
see  this  more  and  more  at  each  stage,  until  the  Delta 
itself  is  reached.  And  if  you  have  come  from  the  Sudan, 
you  are  also  in  a  position  to  grasp  the  great  cardinal 
truth  that  the  key  to  the  water-gates  of  Egypt  is  in  this 
territory.  Whoso  controls  the  Sudan  has  the  power  to 
affect  intimately  the  vital  destinies  of  Egypt,  to  make  it 
rich  and  prosperous,  or  to  reduce  it  to  scarcity  and, 
under  certain  conditions,  to  starvation.  All  this  on 
account  of  the  geography  and  the  hydrography  of  the 
Nile,  which  is  the  most  wonderful  river  in  the  world, 
regulated  by  a  natural  mechanism  unequalled  in  its 
delicacy  and  grandeur.  And  the  power-sources  and 
main  working  stations  of  this  magnificent  machinery  are 
in  the  Sudan.     Egypt  lives  on  and  by  the  results. 

Four  hundred  and  fifty  years  b.c.  Herodotus  said  that 
Egypt  was  the  Nile  and  the  Nile  was  Egypt.  Twenty- 
three  centuries  later  a  great  English  engineer  put  the 
same  thought  into  different  words.     'Egypt,'  says  Sir 

132 


LAND  AND    WATER  133 

William  Willcocks,  'is  nothing  more  than  the  deposit 
left  by  the  Nile  in  flood.'  The  wider  part  of  the 
country  where  it  spreads  out  into  the  fan-like  Delta 
has  been  made  by  the  river  itself  as  it  disgorged  the 
silt  from  its  two  mouths  and  pushed  back  the  sea. 
The  remainder  is  a  ribbon  of  cultivation  between  the 
deserts,  a  ribbon  kept  green  by  the  mud  and  waters  of 
the  Nile.  Cut  off  this  supply  for  a  single  season  and 
the  entire  population  of  Egypt  would  be  in  the  grip  of 
famine;  curtail  it  to  any  serious  extent  for  a  very  few 
years,  and  the  strip  of  cultivation  would  disappear,  and 
the  Arabian  desert  and  the  Sahara  would  come  down 
everywhere,  as  they  do  even  now  in  places,  to  both 
banks  of  the  river.  For  the  most  fertile  agricultural 
region  of  the  earth  is  only  redeemed  from  being  itself 
barren  desert  by  the  gifts  of  the  Nile,  and  the  skill, 
more  or  less  in  different  ages,  by  which  the  bounty  of 
the  great  stream  is  used. 

The  phenomena  connected  with  the  Nile  inundation 
have  been  known  and  utilised  in  Egypt  since  the 
beginning  of  recorded  history.  For  seven  thousand 
years  at  least  men  have  been  watching  and  noting  the 
flow  and  fall  of  the  water  and  ripening  their  crops  by 
its  fertilising  deposit.  King  Menes  is  said  by  tradition 
to  have  begun  the  system  of  basin  irrigation,  and  he  is 
supposed  to  have  lived  about  B.C.  4400.  Ever  since 
(and  probably  before)  Egypt  has  not  only  lived  on  the 
Nile  flood,  but  has  endeavoured,  with  more  or  less 
success,  to  regulate,  economise,  and  direct  it.     No  river 


134  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

has  been  so  closely  studied  as  the  Nile,  or  handled  with 
such  consummate  mastery  and  resourcefulness.  The 
greater  Pharaohs  of  the  middle  dynasties,  the  Ptolemies, 
the  Romans,  brought  to  bear  upon  its  problems  an 
engineering  capacity  which  we  can  envy.  Of  the 
behaviour  of  the  Nile,  when  it  emerged  below  the  Second 
Cataract  and  through  all  its  course  downwards  to  the 
sea,  they  knew  as  much  as  could  be  learned  by  the 
most  careful  observation.  But  the  remoter  causes 
were  still  hidden  from  them.  It  is  only  since  a  civilised 
government  has  been  in  power  along  the  whole  of  the 
upper  waters,  and  since  the  entire  length  of  the  river 
has  been  traced  to  its  source,  that  we  can  in  part 
account  for  that  majestic  periodicity,  and  those  occa- 
sional variations,  which  have  amazed  and  bewildered 
so  many  generations.  Only  since  Britain  has  been  at 
work  in  the  Sudan  have  these  age-long  problems  come 
near  solution  :  thanks  to  the  efforts  of  men  like  Sir 
Colin  Scott-MoncriefF,  Sir  William  Garstin,  Sir  William 
Willcocks,  Mr.  Webb,  and  the  other  great  engineers 
and  administrators  of  the  Egyptian  Public  Works 
Department. 

The  Nile,  as  we  now  know,  has  its  true  source  in  the 
Victoria  Nyanza,  that  vast  natural  reservoir  kept  full 
by  drenching  equatorial  rains  and  the  rivers  of  the 
Central  African  highlands.  It  plunges  over  the  Ripon 
Falls  into  its  second  reservoir,  Lake  Albert,  and  there- 
after, as  the  White  Nile,  flows  steadily  northward, 
leaving  Uganda  to  pass  into  the  Sudan.     In  these  days 


LAND   AND    WATER  135 

we  may  almost  claim  the  Nile  as  a  British  waterway. 
In  no  part  of  its  course  of  3700  miles  does  it  touch 
territory  which  is  not  British  or  under  British  influence. 
Seventy  miles  after  leaving  Lado,  the  Gazell  river  runs, 
or  rather  crawls,  into  the  main  stream,  which  here 
breaks  up  into  many  channels,  filters  wide  over  the 
country  in  spongy  swamps,  and  winds  and  creeps 
deviously  through  beds  of  tangled  vegetation,  the  fa- 
mous Sudd  barrier.  A  little  farther  north  the  White 
Nile  spreads  into  Lake  No,  a  shallow  lagoon ;  then  the 
Sobat  river  joins  it,  and  it  runs  in  a  broad,  equable 
stream,  with  little  fall,  to  Khartum,  where  its  turbulent 
partner,  the  Blue  Nile,  flings  itself  into  its  placid  bosom 
after  a  downward  rush  from  the  alpine  heights  of 
Abyssinia.  It  is  from  this  impetuous  marriage  that 
the  land  of  Egypt  is  born.  For  the  Blue  Nile,  scouring 
the  volcanic  detritus  from  the  mountains,  brings  the 
rich  red  water  that  leaves  the  fertilising  deposit.  It 
is  helped  by  its  younger  brother,  the  Atbara,  also  of 
Abyssinian  descent,  which  joins  the  family  two  hundred 
miles  farther  north.  About  65  per  cent,  of  the  flood 
water  that  passes  the  great  dam  at  Assuan  comes  from 
the  Blue  Nile. 

This  Blue  Nile,  fed  by  the  rains  and  melting  snows, 
begins  to  rise  early  in  June;  and  is  in  full  tide,  together 
with  the  Atbara,  in  the  latter  part  of  August.  The 
river  continues  to  rise  through  Egypt  till  the  middle  of 
September,  when  it  remains  stationary  for  a  fortnight  or 
three  weeks.     Then  a  fresh  rise  occurs  in  October,  and 


136  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

the  Nile  is  at  its  height,  and  then  it  gradually  sinks 
back.  The  flood  season  is  technically  over  at  the  end 
of  January,  by  which  time  most  of  the  'red'  water  has 
gone  by.  Through  the  spring  the  river  continues  to 
fall,  and  is  at  its  lowest  in  the  early  summer,  when  the 
flood  comes  down  again  to  replenish  it.  And  so, 
century  after  century,  the  stately  movement  has  gone 
on ;  and  century  after  century  the  Egyptian  peasant 
has  waited  for  the  spreading  of  the  waters  to  bring  life 
to  his  arid  fields. 

But  the  process,  though  perpetual,  is  not  constant. 
The  rise  and  fall  vary  from  year  to  year ;  and  this 
variation  is  all-important  for  Egypt,  and  has  been,  and 
always  must  be,  the  subject  of  the  most  anxious  solici- 
tude and  calculation.  Shakespeare,  who  knew  every- 
thing, knew  this  : 

They  take  the  flow  o'  the  Nile 
By  certain  scales  i'  the  Pyramids ;   they  know 
By  the  height,  the  lowness,  or  the  mean,  if  dearth 
Or  foison  follow.     The  higher  Nilus  swells 
The  more  it  promises :   as  it  ebbs,  the  seedsman 
Upon  the  slime  and  ooze  scatters  his  grain, 
And  shortly  comes  to  harvest. 

There  is  an  almost  technical  accuracy  in  this  language. 
If  the  Nile  rises  twenty  feet  or  less  there  will  be  famine 
in  Egypt,  and  great  scarcity  if  the  rise  is  no  more  than 
twenty-three  feet.  A  twenty-five  feet  rise  is  still  in- 
sufficient for  the  higher  levels,  whereas  anything  be- 
tween that  figure  and  about  twenty-six  and  a  half  feet 


LAND   AND   WATER  137 

will  give  satisfactory  irrigation  everywhere.  A  rise 
much  beyond  this  level  is  a  dire  misfortune.  It  means 
the  bursting  of  dykes  and  dams,  the  flooding  of  the 
whole  country  and  many  villages,  the  destruction  of 
houses  and  cattle,  and  often  much  loss  of  life.  No 
wonder  the  water  gauges  have  been  anxiously  watched. 
There  are  no  objects  in  Egypt  to  my  thinking  much 
more  interesting  than  the  Nilometers,  the  graduated 
scales  cut  on  stones  or  natural  rocks  on  the  river  banks, 
by  which,  for  thousands  of  years,  the  rise  of  the  water 
has  been  measured  and  by  which  it  is  still  measured 
to-day. 

For  seventy  centuries,  more  or  less,  they  have  been 
watching  the  Nile  flow  ;  it  is  only  in  our  own  times  that 
it  has  become  possible  to  control  it,  and  the  control  will 
grow  more  stringent  year  by  year  as  we  lay  hands  more 
firmly  on  the  Sudan.  For  seven  thousand  years  Egypt 
lived  and  was  born  anew  each  season  by  the  system  of 
basin  irrigation.  When  the  flood  came  down  in  the 
late  summer  and  autumn  it  was  allowed  to  flow  over  or 
through  the  banks  into  basins,  enclosed  by  dykes,  and 
communicating  with  each  other  and  the  Nile  by  a  sys- 
tem of  canals.  The  water,  highly  charged  with  the 
fertilising  deposit,  stood  on  the  land  for  a  month  or 
six  weeks ;  then  it  was  allowed  to  drain  back  into  its 
parent  stream,  leaving  behind  it  the  rich  brown  mud 
on  which  the  fellah  cast  his  seed.  No  ploughing  was 
needed ;  no  manuring,  for  the  deposit  itself  was  suffi- 
cient.    Under  the  old  native  dynasties,  and  the  Greeks, 


138  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

and  the  Romans,  and  the  Caliphs,  the  whole  country- 
was  cultivated  by  this  system,  and  it  supported  ten  or 
twelve,  or,  as  some  hold,  twenty  millions  of  people. 
Only  one  crop  a  year  could  be  grown ;  but  it  was  that 
bounteous  crop  of  wheat,  varied  by  lentils,  clover,  and 
maize,  which  made  Egypt  the  granary  of  the  ancient 
world. 

But  the  basin  system  required  good  government  to 
police  the  dykes  and  watercourses,  and  keep  the  river 
banks  in  repair.  Under  the  Turks  and  Mamluks  it 
gradually  fell  into  disorder.  By  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  large  areas  had  been  abandoned, 
and  had  gone  back  to  salt  and  sand  ;  and  the  population 
of  Egypt  had  dwindled  down  to  a  couple  of  millions. 
Then  came  Mehemet  Ali,  the  Albanian  soldier  of  fortune, 
who  was  the  true  founder  of  modern  Egypt.  That 
ruthless  but  highly  capable  despot  conceived  the  idea 
of  supplementing  the  immemorial  cereal  harvests  of 
Egypt  by  the  more  profitable  cotton  plant.  For  cotton 
the  annual  inundation  is  not  sufficient ;  the  crop  re- 
quires water  at  other  seasons  than  that  of  the  flood. 
Mehemet  Ali's  engineers  began  constructing  broad  and 
deep  canals,  which  would  hold  the  Nile  water  through 
the  year,  and  allow  it  to  be  poured  over  the  land  when 
wanted.  This  is  the  system  of  perennial  irrigation, 
inchoate  and  rudimentary  till  the  British  occupation, 
brought  to  full  development  and  perfection  during  the 
past  twenty  years.  It  is  the  greatest  of  all  the  tasks 
which  Englishmen  have  accomplished  in  Egypt.     The 


LAND   AND   WATER  139 

engineers  of  the  Public  Works  Department  have  been 
busy  converting  the  basin  areas  into  those  of  perennial 
irrigation,  cleaning  out  and  deepening  the  old  canals, 
and  threading  new  ones  through  tracts  which  have 
gone  back  to  desert  or  have  never  yet  been  reclaimed. 
The  basins  exist  no  longer  in  Lower  Egypt,  and  they  are 
fast  being  superseded  in  the  upper  part  of  the  country. 
One  result  is  that  the  land  of  Egypt  has  been  enlarged 
by  tens  of  thousands  of  acres ;  and  the  extension  will 
continue.  The  new  Egypt  is,  to  a  great  extent,  the 
creation  of  the  hydraulic  engineer ;  and  if  that  useful 
person  can  only  be  provided  with  sufficient  water 
he  can  go  on  adding  fresh  accessions  of  territory.  It  is 
a  question  not  of  land,  but  of  water.  The  land  is  there 
in  practically  unlimited  quantities.  The  water  is  not 
unlimited ;  and  the  problem  is  so  to  deal  with  it  that 
the  largest  possible  proportion  shall  be  spread  over  the 
soil  when  the  soil  needs  it,  instead  of  draining  away 
wastefully  into  the  sea.  The  perennial  canals,  com- 
bined with  the  great  dams  and  weirs,  which  store  up 
the  fluid  when  the  Nile  is  high  and  allow  it  to  run  down 
gradually  when  the  stream  is  low,  have  gone  far  to 
furnish  the  solution.  They  have  enabled  the  winter 
crops  of  wheat,  barley,  beans,  lentils,  and  vetches  to  be 
followed  by  summer  crops  of  the  far  more  valuable 
sugar-cane  and  cotton. 

Thus  not  only  has  the  area  of  cultivable  Egypt  been 
extended,  but  its  value  has  been  increased.  Rents  have 
more  than  doubled  in  the  last  dozen  years,  and  in  some 


i4o  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

cases  they  have  trebled  and  quadrupled.  Many  acres 
of  land,  which  fifteen  years  ago  was  barely  worth  £5 
an  acre,  changed  hands  in  the  boom  that  preceded  the 
collapse  of  1907  at  £30,  £40,  £50,  and  upwards.  If  the 
gold-mines  of  the  Rand  had  been  discovered  under  the 
soil  of  Egypt  they  would  scarcely  have  added  more  to 
her  wealth  than  the  labours  of  a  handful  of  British 
engineers  and  officials  since  the  great  schemes  of  Sir 
William  Garstin,  Sir  William  Willcocks,  and  Sir 
Benjamin  Baker  were  developed.  The  capital  value 
of  the  country  has  been  raised  by  tens  of  millions,  and 
once  more  it  is  able  to  support  a  population  not  far  be- 
low that  which  inhabited  it  in  the  palmiest  days  of  the 
Pharaohs.  The  dream  of  Mehemet  Ali  has  been  ful- 
filled :  Egypt  is  helping  to  feed  the  cotton  mills  of  the 
world. 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  BRIDLE  OF  THE  FLOOD 

The  irrigation  of  Egypt  is  a  vast  and  complicated 
business.  In  some  respects  it  is  the  largest  enterprise 
undertaken  by  man  upon  the  surface  of  the  globe ;  for 
when  it  is  completed,  as  it  will  be  sometime  by  the 
head-works  at  Lake  Victoria  and  Lake  Albert,  it  will 
mean  that  over  a  length  of  4000  miles  human  agency  is 
at  work,  adapting  and  modifying  the  forces  of  Nature 
to  serve  its  own  ends  and  minister  to  its  needs. 

The  problem  of  the  Nile  has  become  more  complex 
in  recent  years  since  the  old  basin  irrigation  has  been 
superseded.  When  Egypt  was  mainly  a  corn  producer 
this  system  answered  its  purpose  admirably.  For  the 
country  then  lived  on  the  Nile  flood,  and  the  energies  of 
its  people  were  mainly  devoted  to  utilising  the  flow  to 
the  utmost  and  restraining  it  within  bounds  when  it  ran 
to  excess.  Beyond  that  it  could  not  go.  If  the  rise  was 
insufficient  in  any  year,  Egypt  for  that  year  suffered  and 
starved ;  if  the  rise  was  too  great  the  corvee  of  the 
peasants  was  embodied,  and  all  hands  went  to  the  dykes 
to  raise  and  strengthen  them.  The  superfluous  tide, 
doing  much  or  little  mischief,  as  the  case  might  be, 
coursed  away  eventually  to  the  sea.     It  could  not  be 

hi! 


142  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

stored  for  the  next  year,  which  might,  perhaps,  turn 
out  to  be  one  of  scarcity. 

With  Mehemet  Ali  the  system  of  perennial  irrigation 
came  in.  Deep  canals  were  dug  to  hold  the  water 
through  the  summer,  in  order  that  the  cotton  and  sugar- 
cane plantations  might  be  kept  moist  when  the  flood 
had  gone  by.  It  became  eminently  desirable  to  regu- 
late the  stream  of  the  river,  so  as  to  have  a  supply 
available  at  all  times,  and  so  that  the  deficiency  of  one 
period  might  be  made  good  out  of  the  superfluity  of 
another.  Hence  the  project  of  holding  up  the  Nile 
water  by  means  of  dams  and  barrages,  and  letting  it 
down  gradually  upon  the  land  when  needed.  Seventy 
years  ago  Mougel  Bey,  a  French  engineer  in  the  service 
of  the  great  Viceroy,  designed  the  barrage  fifteen  miles 
north  of  Cairo,  with  the  object  of  controlling  the 
Nile  at  the  Delta  bifurcation,  and  diverting  the  flow  of 
the  Rosetta  and  Damietta  branches  into  canals  by 
which  all  Lower  Egypt  could  be  irrigated.  Mougel 
suffered  the  fate  of  those  who  serve  Oriental  despots  : 
he  fell  out  of  favour,  he  was  not  allowed  to  complete  his 
great  work,  and  he  himself,  after  the  British  occupation, 
was  found  living  in  extreme  old  age  and  dire  poverty  at 
Alexandria.  The  barrage  was  nominally  finished, 
after  Mougel's  fall,  by  corvee  and  military  labour ;  but 
its  workmanship  was  hopelessly  bad,  its  plan  was 
defective,  and  it  was  quite  incapable  of  being  used.  It 
lay  rotting  and  rusting,  till  the  English  came  and 
brought  into  Egypt  skilled  engineers,  trained   in  the 


THE    BRIDLE    OF   THE    FLOOD  143 

Indian  school  of  irrigation.  Sir  Colin  Scott-MoncriefT 
and  his  assistants  took  the  weir  in  hand,  repaired  and 
enlarged  it,  fortified  it  with  solid  masonry  and  concrete, 
and  made  it  capable  of  holding  up  thirteen  feet  of  Nile 
flood.  Three  main  canals  were  constructed  to  draw  off 
the  water  and  spread  it  over  the  Delta  provinces.  The 
works  have  been  paid  for  many  times  over  already  by 
the  increased  value  they  have  given  to  the  lands  of 
Lower  Egypt  and  the  rise  in  the  tax  which  the  Govern- 
ment is  able  to  levy  upon  them. 

Before  this  restoration  was  completed  it  had  become 
clear  that  the  Nile  water  must  be  impounded  and  stored 
much  higher  up,  if  the  whole  of  Upper  as  well  as  Lower 
Egypt  was  to  be  treated  under  the  perennial  canal 
system,  and  made  suitable  for  the  cultivation  of  sugar- 
cane and  cotton  as  well  as  cereal  crops.  In  1890  Sir 
Colin  Scott-Moncrieff  appointed  a  commission,  with  Sir 
William  Willcocks  as  its  president,  to  study  the  ques- 
tion of  establishing  a  great  reservoir  on  the  Nile.  The 
commissioners  reported  in  favour  of  damming  the 
river  at  the  First  Cataract,  just  above  Assuan ;  and  a 
later  international  commission,  composed  of  Sir  Benja- 
min Baker  and  a  French  and  Italian  colleague,  sent  in  a 
recommendation  to  the  same  effect.  It  was  accordingly 
decided  to  build  barrages  at  Assiut  and  Esneh  to  regu- 
late the  flow,  and  to  create  an  enormous  reservoir  or  lake 
by  a  gigantic  dam  of  masonry  above  the  Assuan  Cata- 
ract. The  firm  of  Aird  &  Co.  agreed  to  construct  this  for 
about  two  millions  sterling.     Egypt  was  too  poor,  or 


144  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

rather  too  much  tied  up  by  financial  obligations,  to 
find  this  large  amount  of  capital  at  once ;  but  Sir 
Ernest  Cassel  paid  the  contractors  as  the  work  went  on, 
and  received  bonds  from  the  Egyptian  Government 
which  have  to  be  redeemed  by  sixty  half-yearly  pay- 
ments of  £78,613.  The  Assuan  dam  and  the  Assiut 
barrage  and  their  subsidiary  works  had  cost  about  6| 
millions  up  to  the  end  of  1908  ;  and  Sir  William  Garstin 
estimated  that  as  a  result  the  annual  rental  value  of 
lands  in  Middle  Egypt  had  increased  by  £2,637,000 
and  their  sale  value  by  £26,570,000.  So  this  great 
engineering  triumph  may  be  said  to  have  repaid  its 
cost  already. 

But  the  original  designs  of  Garstin,  Willcocks,  and 
Baker  had  to  be  modified  by  a  curious  outbreak  of 
aesthetic  sentimentalism.  The  dam,  as  projected, 
would  have  held  up  water  enough  to  cause  the  complete 
submersion  of  the  beautiful  temples  at  Philse,  with  their 
pylons  and  courts  and  colonnades.  The  archaeological 
and  antiquarian  societies  of  Europe  were  inflamed  at  the 
thought  of  this  sacrifice ;  and  there  was  a  loud  outcry 
set  up  by  some  who  knew  and  valued  these  monuments, 
and  re-echoed  by  many  who  till  that  time  had  never 
heard  of  them.  Some  of  the  engineers  proposed  that 
the  difficulty  should  be  met  by  raising  the  temples  on 
piles  clear  above  the  highest  level  of  the  reservoir, 
while  others  suggested  that  they  should  be  removed 
bodily  and  rebuilt  elsewhere.  Finally,  a  compromise 
was  adopted.     The  dam,  originally  planned  to  be  100 


THE    BRIDLE    OF    THE    FLOOD  145 

feet  high  and  to  keep  back  85  milliards  of  cubic  feet  of 
water,  was  lowered  by  26  feet,  and  it  was  nominally 
capable  of  holding  up  only  35  milliards  of  cubic  feet, 
though,  as  Sir  William  Willcocks  contends,  it  was  able 
to  resist  the  pressure  of  double  that  quantity.  The 
temples  were  not  drowned  out ;  but  every  year  at  high 
Nile  they  were  converted  into  islands,  with  their  base- 
ments and  the  lower  parts  of  their  columns  flooded. 
The  engineers  maintain  that  the  process  has  done  them 
more  good  than  harm ;  for  the  buildings,  which  were 
fast  falling  into  decay,  have  been  propped  and  under- 
pinned, and  their  annual  washing  is  even  said  to  bind 
and  consolidate  their  foundations.  The  sentimental 
agitation  seems  to  me  to  have  been  honoured  with  much 
more  attention  than  it  deserved.  I  yield  to  nobody  in 
regard  for  the  monuments  of  the  past,  and  would  not 
needlessly  disturb  a  single  stone  that  has  been  hewn 
by  the  hands  of  the  dead ;  but,  after  all,  we  are  con- 
cerned with  the  present,  and  we  cannot  sacrifice  the 
interests  of  the  millions  of  Egyptians,  living  and  to 
come,  in  order  that  a  few  genuine  students  and  a  con- 
siderable number  of  idle  tourists  may  gaze  unimpeded 
at  some  interesting,  though  not  supremely  important, 
examples  of  Ptolemaic  art. 

In  any  case  the  lover  of  the  aesthetic  has  his  compen- 
sation in  the  charm  of  an  imposing  and  significant  con- 
trast. The  temples  rise  like  islands  out  of  the  broad 
sheet  of  water,  the  huge  artificial  lake  into  which  this 
reach  of  the  Nile   has   been   converted   by  the   dam. 


146  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

The  stone  colonnades,  looking  more  Greek  than  Egyp- 
tian in  their  lightness  and  grace,  are  beautiful  in  their 
way ;  but  there  is  a  beauty  of  another  kind,  the  beauty 
of  stern  majesty  and  purposeful  strength,  in  the  mighty 
bar  of  granite  that  lies  athwart  the  river  and  curbs  its 
pace  or  holds  the  tremendous  energy  of  its  impact  in 
suspense.  When  I  visited  it  some  of  the  sluice  gates 
were  open,  and  from  the  vast  white  face  of  the  wall  of 
stone  there  roared  a  dozen  cataracts  of  sparkling  green, 
which  seethed  into  foamy  billows,  and  danced  into 
snowflakes  of  spray  among  the  rocks  below  the  fall.  It 
is  a  thundering  head  of  water,  when  they  let  it  go,  that 
will  rattle  ton-weight  boulders  round  like  pebbles  of 
the  sea-beach.  But  with  the  pull  of  a  few  levers  in 
the  power-house  they  can  close  all  the  gates ;  and  then 
the  three-thousand-mile  flow  of  the  river  is  arrested, 
and  it  laps  peacefully  against  the  barrier,  a  wide  and 
tranquil  pool.  If  the  dam  gave,  there  is  water  enough 
in  that  huge  reservoir  to  drown  all  Egypt,  and  whirl 
its  cities  and  villages  away  like  straws.  But  Sir 
Benjamin  Baker's  massive  rampart,  ribbed  upon  the 
solid  rock  of  the  river  bottom,  will  hold  for  ages  ;  so, 
at  least,  the  engineers  contend,  despite  the  fact  that 
some  eminent  Cambridge  mathematicians  have  worked 
out  calculations  intended  to  prove  that  this  dam,  and 
all  other  dams  and  weirs  and  similar  works,  have  been 
constructed  on  faulty  data.  But  one  is  inclined  to 
think  that  the  engineers  know  their  business  better 
than  the  professors. 


THE    BRIDLE    OF    THE   FLOOD  147 

The  Assuan  Dam  was  begun  in  the  summer  of  1898 
and  finished  in  June  1902.  As  then  left  it  was  a  mile 
and  a  quarter  long,  125  feet  high  at  its  deepest  part,  81 
feet  wide  at  the  bottom,  and  23  feet  at  the  top  —  wide 
enough  for  a  good  roadway  and  a  line  of  rails  for  trolleys. 
Between  the  water  level  above  and  below  the  dam  there 
was  a  difference  of  67  feet.  There  are  180  sluice  gates, 
and  when  they  are  all  open  they  will  let  the  flood  through 
at  the  rate  of  half  a  million  cubic  feet  per  second.  The 
reservoir  above,  or  rather  the  Nile  lake  a  hundred  miles 
long,  would  store  1300  million  cubic  yards  of  water, 
which  sounds  a  perfectly  appalling  quantity.  While 
the  dam  was  being  made  it  was  of  course  necessary  to 
keep  the  Nile  navigation  open,  and  a  canal,  sufficient 
for  the  passage  of  large  boats,  was  cut  through  the  rocky 
hill  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Nile,  the  hill  of  living  granite 
from  which  the  great  shafts  and  monoliths  were  hewn  for 
the  temples  of  Karnak  and  Thebes.  One  such  may  be 
seen  only  half  torn  from  its  bed,  defined  by  the  double 
tier  of  square  holes  mortised  in  the  face  of  the  cliff. 
Wooden  wedges  were  to  be  driven  into  these  slots,  and 
water  poured  upon  them  till  they  swelled  and  the 
rock  cracked  under  the  strain.  Our  engineers,  who  cut 
and  squared  and  lifted  their  own  masonry  with  hardened 
steel  chisels  and  steam  machinery,  were  amazed  at  this 
evidence  of  laborious,  persistent,  indomitable  effort. 
In  this  wise  were  the  mammoth  temples  builded,  the 
mighty  columns  and  pylons  quarried,  carried,  shaped, 
set  up,  by  master-workmen  who  had  perhaps  only  tools 


148  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

of  bronze  at  their  command,  and  ropes,  and  beams, 
and  wooden  levers,  and  thousands  of  straining  oxen, 
and  tens  of  thousands  of  patient  human  hands.  But 
at  Assuan  the  busy  hands  were  suddenly  stilled,  per- 
haps by  war,  or  dynastic  revolution,  or  a  barbarian 
raid,  or  it  may  be  the  bankruptcy  of  the  contractors ; 
the  tools  were  thrown  down,  the  workers  fled,  the 
work  was  left  unfinished  as  we  see  it,  with  the  cuts 
and  borings  in  the  rock  as  clean  and  sharp  as  though 
they  were  made  yesterday  instead  of  forty  centuries  ago. 
Egypt,  to  revert  to  a  former  statement,  is  the  creation 
of  the  irrigationist,  whether  he  works  with  the  immemo- 
rial bucket  and  lever,  unchanged  on  the  Nile  bank 
to-day  since  that  of  the  earliest  dynasties,  or  whether 
he  uses  the  scarcely  less  ancient  water-wheel,  the 
hand  pump,  or  the  perennial  canal.  By  the  completion 
of  the  Delta  barrage,  the  construction  of  the  new  water- 
courses and  the  storage  of  the  waters  in  the  Assuan 
reservoir,  British  engineers  since  the  Occupation  began 
have  added  new  territory  to  the  country.  But  the 
entire  cultivable  area  is  not  yet  provided  for.  All  the 
available  water  is  at  present  used  profitably,  and  in 
the  summer  time,  when  the  Nile  is  low,  hardly  a  drop 
trickles  away  to  the  sea  without  having  done  its  duty 
first  upon  the  fields.  It  was  found  that  the  milliards 
of  cubic  feet  of  water,  held  up  in  the  great  reservoir, 
were  still  insufficient  to  moisten  all  the  land  which 
might  be  brought  into  cultivation.  For  some  years 
to  come  it  will  be  the  task  of  our  engineers  to  devise 


THE    BRIDLE    OF   THE    F.LOOD  149 

measures  for  increasing  the  supply.  Since  1907  they 
have  been  engaged  in  repairing,  in  part,  the  mistake 
made  in  modifying  Sir  William  Willcocks'  original 
design  in  deference  to  the  sentimental  outcry  about 
Philae.  The  dam  has  been  raised  by  five  metres,  and 
if  this  involves  a  further  submersion  of  the  temples 
it  has  more  than  doubled  the  capacity  of  the  reservoir. 
The  additions  were  completed  in  December  1912. 
When  I  visited  the  dam  the  extension  was  in  course 
of  construction,  and  the  resident  engineer  showed  me 
round  the  works,  and  explained  the  ingenious  devices 
by  which  a  mass  of  new  masonry  had  to  be  riveted 
to  the  existing  structure  so  as  to  render  it  capable  of 
supporting  the  additional  strain.  The  increase  of 
storage  capacity  will  supply  the  perennial  canals  for 
some  years  ;  but  eventually  even  that  addition  will  be 
inadequate  and  more  water  will  be  wanted. 

Where  is  it  to  come  from  ?  The  engineers  answer 
that  question  by  turning  to  the  'Anglo-Egyptian 
Sudan,'  and  then  the  full  value  of  that  dominion  be- 
comes apparent.  For  Sir  William  Garstin  and  his 
coadjutors  have  been  considering  several  audacious 
schemes  for  increasing  the  quantity  of  water  brought 
down  to  the  cataracts  by  the  Nile,  and  it  is  only  on  its 
upper  courses  through  the  Sudan  that  the  river  can  be 
dealt  with  in  this  fashion.  The  volume  of  the  great 
stream  has  already  been  frittered  away  and  diminished 
long  before  it  touches  the  Egyptian  border.  More 
than  half  the  amount  brought  down  from  the  equatorial 


150  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

lakes  is  wasted  in  the  swamps  and  marshes  of  the  Sudd 
region.  Since  the  collapse  of  the  Mahdist  rule  British 
officers  have  been  actively  at  work  here.  In  the  dock- 
yard at  Khartum  I  saw  the  gunboats,  equipped  with 
big  steel  saws,  which  are  used  for  shearing  through 
the  tangle  of  floating  weed  and  reed  and  papyrus  that 
obstructed,  and  almost  blocked,  the  flow  of  the  White 
Nile.  The  Sudd  itself  is  not  wasted  :  a  German  in- 
ventor has  discovered  a  method  of  converting  the 
dried  blocks  of  vegetable  debris  into  fuel,  and  a  com- 
pany is  at  work  in  the  Sudan  for  carrying  out  the  pro- 
cess. The  Sudd  had  grown  so  dense,  during  the  years 
of  neglect  under  the  Mahdist  and  the  later  Egyptian 
rule,  that  all  communication  with  the  upper  waters 
of  the  Nile  was  cut  off.  To  the  immeasurable  benefit  of 
Egypt,  the  British  occupation  restored  it.  The  true 
bed  of  the  river  had  in  fact  disappeared;  but  in  1900 
Colonel  Peake  forced  a  passage  through  a  series  of 
shallow  lakes  for  172  miles.  Next  year  another  147 
miles  of  fairway  were  reclaimed,  and  in  1903-4  the 
whole  length  of  the  Nile  was  laid  open.  Now,  though 
still  with  incessant  labour  and  vigilance,  a  passage 
is  kept  clear,  so  that  the  river  is  navigable  as  far  as 
Gondokoro,  and  the  volume  of  water  brought  down 
has  largely  increased.  The  sportsmen  and  pleasure 
parties,  who  get  glimpses  of  Equatorial  Africa  from 
the  decks  of  the  Government  steamers,  should  give  a 
thought  to  the  resourceful  energy  which  has  enabled 
them  to  enjoy  this  comfortable  journey. 


THE    BRIDLE    OF    THE    FLOOD  151 

But,  though  the  Sudd  is  kept  down,  the  White  Nile 
still  soaks  its  way  through  swamp  and  lagoon  for 
nearly  400  miles,  and  the  waste  by  absorption  and 
evaporation  is  enormous.  By  closing  all  the  outlets 
into  the  marshes,  and  widening  and  deepening  the 
channel,  much  of  this  loss  will  be  prevented.  Sir 
William  Garstin  has  even  suggested  a  bolder  project  — 
nothing  less  than  that  of  diverting  the  course  of  the 
river,  so  as  to  make  it  avoid  the  swamp  region  alto- 
gether, and  turning  it  into  a  new  straight  channel 
200  miles  long.  Long  before  that  ambitious  enterprise 
is  attempted  it  is  probable  that  another  Assuan  dam 
will  be  erected  south  of  Khartum  for  the  irrigation  of 
the  whole  great  tract  of  country  above  the  First  Cata- 
ract. Even  more  fascinating  is  the  proposal,  which 
will  be  carried  into  effect  some  day,  for  building  a 
dam  to  regulate  the  discharge  from  the  outlet  of  Albert 
Nyanza,  and  so  to  convert  that  lake  and  Victoria 
Nyanza  into  colossal  storage  reservoirs.  At  the  great 
lakes,  says  Sir  William  Willcocks,  'with  the  sweep  of  a 
giant's  hand,'  the  whole  Nile  system  can  be  handled 
and  controlled.  Lake  Victoria,  adds  the  same  author- 
ity, is  the  true  key  of  the  Nile,  and  whoever  holds  it 
has  the  destinies  of  Egypt  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 
'Modern  Egypt,  with  its  cotton  and  sugar-cane  crops, 
depending  on  the  summer  supply  of  the  river,  and  its 
new  perennial  canals,  is  absolutely  dependent  on  the 
equatorial  lakes  over  whose  outlets  flies  the  flag  of 
Great  Britain.'     That  is  a  conclusive  answer,  if  there 


152  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

were  no  other,  to  the  people  who  talk  lightly  of  ter- 
minating the  connection  between  England  and  the 
Nile  Valley.  England  cannot  withdraw  from  the 
scene,  if  only  because  the  immense  potential  resources 
of  the  North  African  river  basin  cannot  be  developed 
to  their  highest  capacity  without  her  direction  and 
control. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  CLIENTS  OF  COOK 

At  Assuan  one  finds  oneself  whirled  tumultuously  into 
the  full  stream  of  Egyptian  pleasure-seekers.  Some 
go  by  the  Nile  boat  up  to  the  temples  of  Abu  Simbel 
and  the  Second  Cataract  at  Wady  Haifa ;  a  few  take 
the  train  onwards  as  far  as  Khartum.  But  the  ma- 
jority are  content  to  bring  their  southward  journey 
to  a  close  at  Assuan.  They  sentimentalise  over  the 
submerged  temples  at  Philse  and  stare  at  the  great 
dam ;  the  most  of  them  spend  a  few  days,  or  it  may  be 
weeks,  sunning  themselves  on  donkey-back  or  camel- 
back  in  the  desert,  boating  on  the  Nile,  wandering  over 
Elephantine  Island,  or  surveying  that  place  of  many 
memories  from  the  terraces  of  the  hotels. 

One  has  many  temptations  to  linger  and  'fleet  the 
time  pleasantly.'  From  my  window  at  the  Cataract  I 
enjoyed  a  prospect  which  was  a  never-ending  delight 
and  interest.  To  watch  the  changing  colours  of  the 
great  river  at  my  feet  might  of  itself  have  been  an  occu- 
pation for  an  idle  man's  day.  In  the  morning,  before 
the  sun  had  warmed  it  into  translucency,  it  lay  before 
one  a  sheet  of  oily  brown ;  it  turned  to  a  clear  green- 
grey  at  midday,  and  settled  into  steely  white  under 

153 


154  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

the  cold  luminosity  of  the  moon.  Before  evening  the 
tourists,  thirsty  for  tea  after  the  jaunts  of  the  day, 
would  assemble  on  the  terrace  to  watch  the  tremendous 
pageant  of  the  sunset.  It  is  a  thing  distinctive  and 
unique,  that  dying  of  the  daylight  in  Upper  Egypt, 
because  all  the  colours  of  the  changing  sky  are  trans- 
mitted by  the  broad  refracting  mirror  of  the  Nile. 
Fantastic  and  amazing  are  the  variations  of  the  setherial 
tints  as  they  quiver  upon  the  face  of  the  waters  and 
drown  in  their  depths.  Like  an  army  with  banners 
the  long  columns  of  carmine  and  orange  march  across 
the  firmament,  and  wane  above  the  rugged  hills  of  the 
western  bank  into  the  mauve  and  violet  of  the  matchless 
Egyptian  afterglow ;  and  the  Nile  is  mottled  in  squares 
and  patches  of  diverse  hue.  Immediately  before  us 
it  is  a  dull  purple,  in  which  the  shadows  of  the  rocks 
and  the  reflection  of  a  passing  dahabiyeh  hang  black; 
farther  to  the  south  lies  a  space  of  glowing  rose,  then 
one  of  lemon-yellow  slowly  burnishing  itself  to  gold. 
Mighty  boulders  edge  into  the  stream,  or  fling  them- 
selves as  rocky  islets  into  its  course,  and  force  it  to 
cream  and  splutter  over  the  cataracts. 

Opposite  we  see  the  island  of  Elephantine,  with  its 
Nubian  villages  nestling  among  the  palm-groves : 
Elephantine,  where  once  Juvenal,  an  unwilling  exile, 
pointed  wrathful  hexameters  against  Egyptian  super- 
stition and  Roman  officialdom.  But  Juvenal,  groaning 
for  the  club  life  and  fashionable  society  of  the  metrop- 
olis, was  a  mere  upstart,  modern  like  ourselves.     Aus- 


THE    CLIENTS    OF    COOK  155 

terer  and  more  ancient  memories  face  us  at  Elephantine. 
Those  laughing  American  boys  and  girls  in  the  sailing 
boat  yonder  are  putting  across  for  the  Nilometer, 
which  was  old  when  Strabo  saw  it.  Presently  their 
dragoman  will  bid  them  notice  the  inscribed  rocks 
by  the  waterside,  where  they  will  see  the  cartouches 
and  texts  of  Thothmes  II  and  Rameses  II,  sharp  cut 
into  the  imperishable  granite  three  thousand  years  ago. 
Egypt  is  the  classic  land  of  the  tourist.  Here,  at 
any  rate,  he  need  not  blush  for  himself  as  a  parvenu. 
The  late  Mr.  Thomas  Cook,  wood-turner,  printer, 
Baptist  missionary,  and  man  of  genius,  did,  it  is  true, 
re-open  the  Nile  lands  for  Western  and  Northern  holi- 
day-makers in  the  nineteenth  century.  But  his  clients 
were  only  following  a  very  ancient  tradition.  The 
Egyptian  winter  excursionist  is  of  a  venerable  an- 
tiquity. He  was  perambulating  the  Nile  banks  long 
before  the  country  that  gave  birth  to  Cook  had  emerged 
from  barbarism.  Even  the  globe-trotter,  observing 
the  curious  details  with  an  eye  to  publication,  may  be 
comforted  by  the  thought  that  personages  of  the 
highest  literary  respectability  were  doing  the  same 
thing  before  Greece  had  grown  old  and  while  Rome  was 
still  young.  The  Father  of  History  is  his  great  exem- 
plar. Herodotus,  the  first  Special  Correspondent,  was 
filling  his  journalistic  notebooks  with  points  about 
Egypt  even  as  his  humbler  successors  are  doing  to-day. 
Strabo,  another  useful  member  of  the  craft,  was  occu- 
pied in  similar  fashion  four  hundred  years  later.     He 


156  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

had  an  introduction  to  the  officer  in  command  at 
Assuan,  who  took  him  out  for  a  drive  in  the  desert, 
and  showed  him  the  sights  of  the  locality,  and  brought 
him  back  to  dinner,  and,  I  dare  say,  spent  the  evening 
with  him  discussing  the  detestable  condition  of  home 
politics  and  explaining  to  his  civilian  visitor  that  the 
gross  incompetency  of  the  Roman  war  office  was  simply 
ruining  the  Service.  Plus  ca  change  plus  c*  est  la  meme 
chose,  at  least  in  Egypt,  where  one  counts  by  centuries 
as  elsewhere  by  years.  And  my  own  belief  is  that 
centuries  hence,  when  the  Turks  have  gone  from  the 
Mediterranean,  and  when  the  English  occupation  is  no 
more  than  a  scratch  on  the  historic  record,  the  tourist 
from  lands  afar  will  still  come  to  spend  joyous  winters 
in  Egypt,  will  still  loaf  pleasantly  up  and  down  the 
Nile,  will  still  grope  his  way  into  the  tombs  of  the  kings, 
will  still  stand  awestruck  before  the  mammoth  ruin 
of  Karnak,  and  will  still  be  hauled  by  rapacious  raga- 
muffins over  the  ledges  of  the  Pyramid. 

He  was  indeed  very  like  ourselves,  that  ancient 
tourist,  even  in  his  vulgarities ;  and  he  went  and 
scratched  his  name  and  his  banal  observations  on  the 
monuments,  like  any  cheap  tripper.  Excursionists 
of  the  Greek  and  Roman  times  have  left  their  mark 
all  over  the  feet  and  legs  of  the  majestic  northern 
Colossus  of  Memnon  at  Thebes ;  and  some  Ionian 
mercenaries  —  a  company  of  Greek  'Tommies,' 
homeward-bound  from  the  Sudan  —  placed  a  notice 
of  their  journey  on  the  polished  granite  of  the  great 


THE    CLIENTS    OF    COOK  157 

statues  at  Abu  Simbel.  But  that  which  is  common 
and  ill-bred  in  the  present  is  gilded  by  a  ray  of  romance 
when  it  has  been  perpetrated  long  ago.  For  this 
antique  cockneyism  we  can  only  be  grateful.  Those 
Greek  and  Latin  inscriptions  at  the  base  of  the  Colossus 
are  too  trivial  to  disfigure  the  monster.  They  do  but 
add  to  its  impression  of  permanence  and  power.  Calm, 
immovable,  enormous,  gazing  for  ever  in  passionless 
meditation  on  the  grey  immensities  of  the  desert, 
above  the  palm  trees  and  the  villages  and  the 
transient  towns,  the  great  twin  brethren  sat  as 
they  sit  to-day ;  and  at  their  feet  the  little  human 
insects  from  the  JEgean  and  the  Adriatic  crawled  and 
chattered,  as  our  great-great-grandchildren  may  crawl 
and  chatter  in  the  short  to-morrow  of  eternity. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  modern  tourist,  as  a  general 
rule,  takes  the  antiquities  too  seriously.  'I  am  getting 
fed  up  with  temples,'  observed  one  gay  youth,  as  we 
bucketed  on  our  donkeys  over  this  same  monumental 
plain  of  Thebes.  Most  of  the  visitors,  it  is  true,  provide 
themselves  with  the  volumes  of  Baedeker,  Murray, 
or  Flinders  Petrie,  and  begin  with  an  honest  endeavour 
to  assimilate  those  improving  works ;  but  after  a  time 
they  get  mixed  up  among  the  dynasties  and  the  car- 
touches, and  can  hardly  distinguish  Queen  Candace 
from  Queen  Hatshepu,  or  Amenhotep  from  Psam- 
metichus.  They  are  rather  a  jolly  lot,  who  have  come 
from  the  smoke  of  London,  the  chills  of  Berlin,  and  the 
wintry  rigours  of  Chicago,  in  holiday  mood,  entirely 


158  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

resolved  to  enjoy  themselves.  Of  modern  Egypt,  the 
real,  living  Egypt,  they  know  even  less  than  they  do 
of  that  ancient  Egypt  which  still  lies  half  buried  under 
the  dust ;  but  the  Egypt  of  Messrs.  Cook,  the  Egypt 
of  the  hotels  and  the  palace  steamers,  the  Egypt  of 
the  dragoman  and  the  donkey-boy,  the  Egypt  which 
dines  and  dances  and  holds  gymkhanas,  the  Egypt 
which  enables  the  Northern  sojourner  to  bask  and 
play  in  the  sun  —  that  they  most  keenly  appreciate. 
They  visit  the  monuments  in  parties  and  in  the  highest 
spirits.  There  are  middle-aged  ladies,  who  have  never 
ridden  donkeys  since  their  childhood  and  are  proud  of 
their  success  with  these  fiery  animals ;  middle-aged 
gentlemen,  exchanging  jocularities  with  the  guides ; 
young  folks  of  both  sexes,  much  occupied  with  one 
another.  Five  out  of  six  carry  kodaks,  and  photograph 
with  indiscriminating  assiduity. 

For  idle  people  who  want  to  while  away  a  month  or 
two  agreeably  there  is  no  pleasanter  region  than  the 
Upper  Nile,  though  most  visitors,  I  believe,  come  away 
convinced  that  the  climate  hardly  deserves  its  reputa- 
tion. It  can  be  bitterly  cold  in  the  mornings  even  at 
Assuan  and  Luxor;  and  Cairo  in  January  is  sometimes 
as  uncomfortable  as  London  in  November.  But  the 
tourist  need  not  get  up  till  the  day  is  fairly  warmed, 
and  he  is  indoors  long  before  the  evening  chill  sets  in. 
The  temples  and  tombs  at  least  furnish  an  excellent 
excuse  for  long  rides  and  hilarious  afternoons.  The 
hardships  of  travel  are  unfelt,  since  the  best  Egyptian 


THE    CLIENTS    OF    COOK  159 

hotels  are  not  easily  to  be  beaten  in  any  country  for 
comfort  and  luxury.  An  admirable  table  d'hote,  the 
ministrations  of  a  competent  chef  and  maitre  d'hotel,  a 
good  orchestra,  a  commodious  lounge,  a  cosmopolitan 
society  in  the  best  of  tempers,  perhaps  a  dance,  send 
the  visitor  happily  to  bed.  Cookian  Egypt  is  run  on 
the  probably  correct  assumption  that  most  visitors  are 
well  provided  with  money  to  spend  and  all  bent  on 
amusing  themselves.  The  severe  voyager  who  comes 
abroad  to  economise  has  scarcely  as  yet  found  his  way 
to  the  Nile ;  though,  towards  the  end  of  the  season, 
strange  cohorts  of  the  personally-conducted,  doing 
the  country  at  a  moderate  inclusive  charge,  descend 
upon  the  land.  But  to  enjoy  the  winter  Nile  trip  it  is 
better  not  to  be  too  earnest  or  too  thrifty.  If  you 
want  to  study  the  people  or  the  monuments  seriously, 
come  earlier  or  later  in  the  season,  before  the  holiday 
horde  has  arrived  or  after  it  has  gone  away. 

Egypt,  then,  for  a  certain  number  of  weeks  in  the 
winter  is  a  tourist  land,  and  such,  under  all  political 
and  social  vicissitudes,  it  is  likely  to  remain.  Whether 
this  is  wholly  an  advantage  to  the  country  may  be 
doubted.  The  visitors  bring  in  some  money,  but 
only  a  small  portion  is  left  to  'fructify  in  the  pockets 
of  the  people.'  Perhaps  some  two  millions  sterling 
are  spent  in  Egypt  each  year  between  December  and 
March.  But  of  this  sum  the  greater  part  goes  to  the 
tourist  agencies,  the  steamship  companies,  and  the 
great  hotels,  and  returns  to  Europe  as  dividends  and 


160  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

interest  on  the  international  capital  by  which  these 
concerns  are  run.  The  salaries  and  wages  paid  to 
Swiss  managers  and  German  waiters  scarcely  add  to 
the  wealth  of  Egypt ;  nor  the  money  expended  in  the 
fashionable  shops  in  Cairo,  largely  owned  by  Greeks, 
Italians  and  Frenchmen.  There  remains  the  harvest 
reaped  by  carriage  proprietors,  guides,  dragomans, 
donkey  drivers,  bazaar  vendors,  and  miscellaneous 
appropriators  of  baksheesh.  Many  of  these  persons 
do  pretty  well.  A  young  dragoman  at  Luxor  told  me 
that  he  devoted  the  entire  summer  to  study  and  medi- 
tation and  yet  was  able  to  make  enough  in  the  winter 
to  maintain  his  wife  and  family  in  comfort.  He  had 
been  drawn  for  the  conscription,  and  had  promptly 
bought  himself  off  out  of  his  savings  :  no  ten  years' 
servitude  in  the  ranks  for  this  capitalist.  But  the 
men  and  boys  who  cultivate  the  tourist  field  are  not 
the  most  estimable  members  of  Egyptian  society,  nor 
are  they  improved  by  their  contact  with  Western  civ- 
ilisation. Too  many  of  the  peasantry  are  tempted 
away  from  their  villages  by  this  easy  method  of  earning 
money.  The  thrifty,  laborious  peasant  is  converted 
into  a  tout  and  hanger-on ;  he  becomes  extortionate 
and  insolent,  and  has  grown  too  lazy  by  the  end  of  the 
season  to  return  to  the  monotonous  toil  of  his  hamlet. 
He  idles  about  all  the  summer,  reserving  himself  for 
the  excitement  of  baksheesh-hunting  and  hotel-haunt- 
ing in  the  winter. 

Old  residents  deplore  the  demoralisation  produced  by 


THE    CLIENTS    OF    COOK  161 

this  annual  gamble  for  piastres  and  complain  that  it  is 
aggravated  by  the  careless  bounty  of  the  visitors,  who 
treat  the  natives  with  a  familiarity  which  they  often 
abuse.  One  hears  lurid  stories  in  Cairo  of  the  rela- 
tions of  some  European  lady  visitors  towards  certain 
of  the  picturesque  Arab  ruffians  who  swagger  about 
in  the  capacity  of  dragoman.  No  doubt  these  tales 
are  greatly  exaggerated ;  but  the  lower  class  native, 
accustomed  for  generations  to  be  treated  with  utter 
contempt  by  his  'betters,'  easily  misunderstands  a 
slight  display  of  courtesy  and  interest.  The  donkey- 
boys,  while  they  remain  boys,  are  often  brisk,  ready- 
witted,  and  amusingly  cheeky  young  rascals ;  but, 
grown  to  man's  estate,  they  become  greedy  and  im- 
pertinent, and  contrast  disagreeably  with  the  unspoilt 
fellahin,  who  are  respectful,  reserved,  and  not  without 
a  certain  humble  dignity.  The  visitor  usually  comes 
away  rather  unfavourably  impressed  by  the  Egyptian 
native ;  but  that  is  because  he  sees  only  the  worst 
specimens  of  the  population  in  their  worst  aspects. 
If  he  had  any  opportunity  of  making  acquaintance 
with  Mohammedan  gentlemen  of  the  old-fashioned 
kind,  and  not  merely  the  smart  young  men  in  tar- 
booshes who  read  French  novels  and  patronise  the 
hotels,  or  if  he  took  occasion  to  see  the  villagers  in  their 
homes  and  at  their  work,  his  estimate  might  be  more 
indulgent. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  HILLS  OF  THE  DEAD 

These  winter  visitors  to  Egypt  are,  as  I  have  endeav- 
oured to  explain,  for  the  most  part  in  a  buoyant  frame 
of  mind.  The  gloomy  grandeur  of  the  ancient  monu- 
ments does  not  greatly  impress,  and  is  far  indeed  from 
depressing,  them.  They  have  come  to  the  Nile  only 
incidentally  to  inspect  temples  and  tombs ;  their 
main  quest  is  for  a  good  climate  and  a  good  time.  As 
to  the  former  they  sometimes  have  to  pretend  pretty 
hard  in  order  to  persuade  themselves  that  they  are 
thoroughly  satisfied,  for  Egypt  in  December  and 
January  is  not  all  warmth  and  sunny  sky.  They  get 
their  best  time  as  a  rule  in  Upper  Egypt,  when  they 
have  exchanged  the  relaxing  air  of  Cairo  for  the  bracing 
dryness  of  Assuan  and  Luxor.  In  the  latter  place, 
that  centre  of  colossal  ruins  and  amazing  monuments, 
they  can  enjoy  themselves  very  much ;  and,  if  they  do 
full  justice  to  the  excellent  cuisine  and  other  highly 
modern  amenities  of  the  hotels,  they  do  not  fail  to  pay 
their  respects  to  the  stupendous  remains  of  Karnak, 
and  make  frequent  pilgrimages  across  the  river  to  the 
plain  and  necropolis  of  Thebes. 

One  might  well  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to 
Egypt,  if  Egypt  had  nothing  else  to  show  but  these 

162 


THE    HILLS    OF    THE    DEAD  163 

overpowering  vestiges  of  a  vanished  civilisation.  There 
are  people  who  find  something  barbaric  in  mere  size. 
By  this  criterion  the  ancient  Egyptians  were  bar- 
barians ;  for  in  actual  bigness  most  modern  buildings 
are  bandboxes  by  comparison  with  some  of  theirs. 
But  I  cannot  agree  that  the  temple  of  Karnak  is  im- 
posing only  by  its  magnitude,  like  an  English  railway 
terminus  or  an  American  skyscraper.  When  you 
stand  inside  the  great  Hippostyle  Hall,  and  let  your 
eye  travel  about  that  wilderness  of  mighty  columns 
and  crushing  beams,  you  are  conscious  of  elemental 
power  like  that  of  Nature  herself  in  her  more  prodigal 
moods  of  achievement.  So  does  one  survey  the  mam- 
moth wedge  of  the  Matterhorn  and  the  splintered 
peaks  of  the  Rockies.  Carry  the  mind  for  a  moment 
away  to  the  works  of  classic  or  Gothic  art :  the  Parthe- 
non, in  its  white  beauty,  Chartres  and  Canterbury, 
with  all  their  wealth  of  flying  arch  and  fretted  buttress 
and  petrified  embroidery,  seem  toy-like  before  the 
superb  simplicity  of  those  colossal  lotus  capitals  that 
blossom  above  the  swelling  vastness  of  the  columns. 
But  Karnak,  as  we  see  it  to-day,  has  the  majesty  of 
strength  in  desolation ;  conceive  what  it  must  once 
have  been  when  every  smoothed  beam  and  polished 
shaft  glowed  with  the  colours  of  the  desert  and  the 
sunset,  with  blazing  red  and  vivid  green  and  burning 
yellow ;  and  when  from  every  wall  and  roof  there 
waved  tapestries  of  blue  and  crimson  and  gold.  In  the 
masonry  of  the  pylons  at  Luxor  there  are  deep  slots 


164  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

to  hold  the  triple  masts  from  which  the  long  streamers 
floated  —  masts  and  streamers,  I  doubt  not,  as  much 
greater  than  the  poles  and  pennants  before  St.  Mark's 
as  the  Karnak  temple,  with  its  mile-long  avenue  of 
sphinxes,  was  greater  than  the  Venetian  casket  of 
jewellery  work.  It  was  worth  while  to  be  a  tourist 
in  Egypt  in  those  days. 

Karnak  and  Luxor,  the  cities  of  the  living,  lie  on 
the  east  bank  of  the  Nile.  On  the  west  bank  opposite 
is  the  City  of  the  Dead.  In  the  wide  level  plain  by 
the  river  was  Thebes,  with  its  temples  and  streets, 
and  its  colonies  of  priests,  embalmers,  and  mortuary 
workers,  and  attendants  of  all  kinds.  Some  three 
miles  back  the  desert  plateau  of  the  Sahara  drops  down 
in  rugged  slopes  and  banks,  where  'the  kings  and 
counsellors  of  the  earth'  sleep  in  the  'desolate  places' 
they  hollowed  for  themselves  among  the  rocks.  No 
tourist  omits  to  visit  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings.  It  is 
one  of  the  show  spots  of  Egypt ;  and  here  more  than 
anywhere  else,  I  think,  the  traveller  loses  by  the  condi- 
tions under  which  he  usually  undertakes  the  journey. 
For  this  pilgrimage  to  the  last  habitations  of  the  buried 
Pharaohs  the  holiday  mood  is  distinctly  inappropriate. 
The  effect  lies  almost  as  much  in  the  approach  as  in 
the  funeral  chambers  themselves,  and  it  is  apt  to  be 
missed  in  the  company  of  garrulous  guides  and  noisy 
excursionists. 

For  myself,  I  went  alone  and  walked.  Nobody  ever 
walks  in  Egypt;    and  the  hotel  porter,  when  informed 


THE    HILLS    OF   THE    DEAD  165 

that  I  proposed  to  adopt  that  method  of  locomotion, 
regarded  me  with  horror  and  contempt.  I  so  far 
agree  with  him  that  I  should  generally  prefer  to  be 
transported  by  a  railway  train,  a  motor-car,  a  horse,  a 
camel,  a  mule,  or  a  bicycle,  rather  than  by  that  clumsy 
appliance  the  human  leg,  which  has  always  seemed  to 
me  singularly  ill  adapted  for  rapid  and  convenient 
progression.  But  on  this  occasion  I  did  well  to  go 
afoot.  My  solitary  morning  tramp  across  the  Theban 
plain  and  up  into  the  Hills  of  the  Dead  repaid  the 
fatigue  it  involved.  For  a  couple  of  miles  or  so  the 
road  passes  through  the  villages,  beside  irrigation  canals, 
and  over  the  cultivated  ground.  Then  the  fields  are 
left,  and  you  wind  your  way  up  among  the  barren  hills. 
I  do  not  know  any  place  that  gives  a  more  absolute 
impression  of  forlorn  and  lifeless  solitude.  It  is  desert, 
not  here  lying  before  you  in  a  vast  expanse  of  air  and 
radiance,  but  desert  channelled  into  narrow  gorges  or 
tossed  into  rifted  crags  and  cliffs  of  sand ;  not  a  tree 
or  a  blade  of  grass  or  a  rill  of  water  to  break  the  blank 
numbness  of  the  dry  and  withered  ridges.  The  path, 
threading  upward  through  these  desolate  glens,  leads 
at  length  to  the  foot  of  a  bold  mountain  mass  that 
throws  its  broad  front  and  heavy  sloping  shoulders 
up  to  the  skyline,  and  looks  as  if  the  world  ended  with 
its  crest.  For  the  ancient  Egyptians  it  did,  and,  in  a 
sense,  it  does  so  still.  The  mountain  has  only  one 
side ;  it  is  the  stairway  to  the  upland  plateau  of  the 
North  African  desert.     You  can  climb  to  the  summit, 


166  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

and  then  you  find  yourself  on  level  ground  again,  the 
infinite  level  of  the  Sahara,  that  stretches  for  two  thou- 
sand miles  straight  in  front  of  you.  You  might  ride, 
if  you  could  carry  food  and  sustenance  for  yourself 
and  your  beasts,  for  weeks  and  months,  due  west 
across  that  waste  till  you  came  almost  down  to  the 
shores  of  the  Atlantic.  The  ancients  thought  that 
the  other  world  lay  beyond  this  pathless  plain,  and 
they  buried  their  kings  and  princes  and  nobles  at 
its  edge,  that  they  might  find  the  way  from  it  to  their 
last  abiding  place. 

In  the  heart  of  the  mountain  are  the  courts,  the 
palaces,  the  mansions  of  the  dead.  The  funeral  pro- 
cession wound  up  from  the  populous  plains  below  by 
that  same  road  I  had  traversed.  Long  corridors  and 
passages  were  hewn  in  the  everlasting  stone ;  at  their 
inmost  end  a  deep,  square  chamber  where  they  placed 
the  sarcophagus  of  the  king,  and  his  mummy,  perhaps 
also  the  mummies  of  his  queens,  his  sons,  and  his 
daughters.  Then  they  walled  up  the  entrance  with 
great  stones,  and  left  Pharaoh  to  reign  in  his  silent 
kingdom  alone.  The  centuries  came  and  went ;  Egypt, 
Persia,  Greece,  and  Rome  passed  away;  'the  drums 
and  tramplings  of  a  thousand  conquests'  echoed  along 
the  banks  of  the  Nile ;  and  still  Pharaoh  slept  in  his 
palace  of  the  underworld.  In  the  tomb  of  Amenophes 
II.,  opened  in  1899,  you  may  watch  his  slumbers  even 
now.  The  mummy  is  there  in  the  stone  coffin  where 
they  placed  it  when  the  king  died.     It  is  easily  visible, 


THE    HILLS    OF    THE    DEAD  167 

for  the  tombs  are  wired  and  lighted  by  electricity  to 
prevent  the  discolouration  of  the  walls  and  ceilings  by 
the  torches  of  the  guides.  Blackened  and  shrivelled, 
the  corpse  is  recognisably  human,  perhaps  even  in 
some  degree  regal,  with  its  stiff  legs,  its  thin  hands, 
the  narrow,  high  forehead,  the  haughty  firmness  of 
the  tight-closed  lips  and  eyes.  In  the  massive  stone 
chest  the  king  lies  as  they  left  him.  All  about  him  the 
figured  walls  of  his  maze  of  cells  and  galleries  glow  with 
the  records  of  his  triumphs  and  his  deeds,  glaring  and 
staring  at  you,  as  when  they  stained  and  chiselled 
them  3,000  years  ago:  Pharaoh,  magnificent  and 
vindictive,  binding  his  enemies  in  ropes,  dragging 
captive  kings  behind  his  chariot-wheels,  building, 
smiting,  sacrificing,  destroying ;  there  are  the  servants 
of  his  pleasures,  the  ministers  of  his  power,  above  all 
the  dreadful  gods,  his  guardians,  dog-headed  fiends 
and  vulture-headed  monsters,  who  have  taken  Pharaoh 
unto  themselves.  A  strange  and  terrible  world  this, 
that  the  explorers  laid  bare  for  us  when  they  violated 
the  hiding-places  of  the  City  of  the  Dead  ! 

And  yet  it  was  not  all  gloom  and  wrath  and  savage 
magnificence.  In  the  Museum  at  Cairo  you  can  see 
the  objects  taken  from  the  graves,  notably  the  treasures 
found  by  Mr.  Theodore  Davis  in  the  tomb  of  Queen 
Thya's  parents.  Mr.  Davis  is  a  wealthy  and  enthu- 
siastic American  excavator,  who  has  laboured  with 
tireless  zeal  to  rob  the  hiding-places  of  Thebes  of  their 
secrets.     The  cases  filled  by  his  industry  and  liberality 


168  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

at  Cairo  are  of  extraordinary  interest.  There  are 
beautiful  inlaid  coffers  of  sandal-wood  and  ivory,  deli- 
cate alabaster  vases,  painted  and  gilded  chariots, 
chairs  and  couches  plated  with  gold,  elegant  and  sym- 
metrical as  the  best  Louis  Quinze  work ;  there,  or  in 
other  apartments  of  the  Museum,  are  exquisite  rings 
and  bracelets  and  brooches,  gold  rosettes  to  fasten 
my  lady's  dress,  and  gemmed  tiaras  for  the  coils  of  her 
dusky  hair.  The  men  who  piled  up  the  Pyramids, 
and  forced  myriads  of  straining  slaves  to  drag  immense 
stone  coffins  into  the  cavities  of  the  hills,  had  a  taste 
for  art  and  beauty  and  luxury,  too.  They  worked  in 
miniature  as  well  as  on  the  grandest  scale,  and  carved 
a  jade  scarab  no  bigger  than  a  plum-stone,  or  fashioned 
a  necklace  of  amber  beads  to  lie  lightly  on  some  soft 
bosom,  a  jewel  to  hang  from  a  little  brown  ear,  with 
the  same  sure  workmanship  and  unfaltering  skill  with 
which  they  wrought  at  the  great  monoliths  that  stand 
solemnly  among  the  lamp-posts  of  the  Thames  Em- 
bankment and  the  statuettes  of  the  Place  de  la  Con- 
corde. Truly  a  wonderful  people,  with  more  mysteries 
to  them  than  the  antiquarians  have  revealed. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

CAIRO  IMPRESSIONS 

To  many  visitors  I  think  the  first  impression  of  Cairo 
must  be  one  of  disappointment.  The  untravelled 
tourist,  trained  to  believe  that  he  is  here  in  the  heart 
of  the  genuine,  unadulterated  East,  is  no  doubt  easily- 
pleased.  He  is  looking  for  local  colour,  and  he  gets  it, 
mistaking  the  hotel  'Arabs'  for  genuine  children  of  the 
desert,  and  photographing  Coptic  clerks  and  Levan- 
tine hawkers  under  the  belief  that  they  are  representa- 
tive specimens  of  the  Moslem  population.  He  has 
come  to  Egypt  with  a  stock  of  preconceived  ideas, 
and  he  takes  some  time  to  dispose  of  them.  One  of 
these  notions  is  that  it  is  always  blazing  hot  in  this 
quarter  of  the  globe,  a  delusion  from  which  he  is  some- 
times roughly  awakened  by  a  severe  cold  or  an  attack 
of  influenza.  I  went  to  a  garden-party  at  Ghczirch 
one  afternoon  in  January.  It  was  dull  and  cloudy, 
with  a  fresh  wind  blowing,  and  most  of  the  male  guests 
were  attired  in  dark  tweeds  or  serge  coats,  with  bowler 
hats  or  similar  head  coverings.  My  sympathy  was 
aroused  for  a  new-comer  from  Europe,  who  had  arrayed 
himself  for  the  occasion  in  light  flannels,  knickerbockers, 
putties,  and  a  huge  sun  helmet.  In  this  respect  the 
Teuton    is    a    worse   offender    than    the    Briton.     The 

169 


170  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

latter  has  a  natural  dislike  for  the  unconventional  and 
the  outre  in  dress ;  but  the  voyager  from  the  Father- 
land clings  shiveringly  to  his  tropical  garb  and  his 
helmet  on  days  which  suggest  thick  overcoats  and  the 
comforts  of  the  fireside. 

To  the  stranger,  however,  who  knows  something  of 
the  East,  who  has  seen  it  in  Persia,  or  India,  or  even 
Turkey,  Cairo  at  the  first  view  must  seem  a  rather 
cockneyfied  place.  And  to  him  who  comes  down,  as 
I  did,  from  the  Sudan,  it  will  appear  that  he  has  left 
Africa  some  way  behind,  and  has  stepped  back  into 
Europe.  As  I  drove  from  the  railway  station  on  a 
dark  evening,  in  a  drizzle  of  rain,  I  thought  to  myself 
that  if  I  had  dropped  down  here  from  the  clouds  I 
might  well  have  believed  myself  in  almost  any  great 
city  on  the  other  side  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  tall, 
stucco-fronted  houses  with  iron  balconies,  the  wine 
shops,  the  cafes,  the  tramways,  the  granite-paved 
roads,  the  frequent  lettering  in  French  and  Italian, 
were  full  of  Western  suggestion.  In  Cairo  the  visitor 
lives  and  spends  most  of  his  time  in  a  quarter  which 
is  entirely  modern  and  occidentalised ;  a  quarter  of 
wide,  new  boulevards,  high  blocks  of  offices  and  flats, 
plate-glass  shop  windows,  and  huge,  staring  hotels. 

New  Cairo,  like  most  of  the  Continental  capitals  from 
Christiania  to  Belgrade,  aims  at  a  bad  imitation  of 
Paris,  and  succeeds  as  well  as  the  others.  It  is  a  little 
humiliating  for  nous  autres,  we  English,  to  reflect  that, 
in  spite  of  all  we  have  done  in  the  world,  in  spite  of  our 


CAIRO    IMPRESSIONS  171 

success,  our  energy,  our  material  power,  it  is  not  our 
particular  type  of  civilisation  and  society  that  our 
rivals,  our  clients,  even  our  dependants,  are  anxious  to 
copy.  It  is  a  case  of  Gratia  capta  over  again.  Here, 
in  Egypt,  we  are  the  victors  and  the  rulers;  we  'run 
the  show'  politically  and  economically;  we  dominate 
administrative  and  military  matters ;  we  are  the  most 
efficient  and  potent  influence  in  the  country;  we  are 
obeyed,  and,  on  the  whole,  I  think  we  are  respected. 
But  we  have  not  insinuated  our  way  into  the  Egyptian 
heart.  We  are  not  loved ;  our  habits,  our  customs, 
our  ideals  do  not  appeal  to  their  sympathies.  When 
Young  Egypt  casts  its  eyes  outwards  it  looks  to  France. 
It  reads  French  books,  it  likes  to  speak  the  French 
language,  it  sees  French  plays,  it  relaxes  itself  in  what 
it  supposes  to  be  the  French  manner;  it  cultivates, 
so  far  as  it  can,  French  society,  masculine  and  feminine 
—  especially  feminine.  When  it  takes  a  European  holi- 
day it  does  not  seek  the  coasts  of  Britain  :  it  finds 
our  manners,  as  well  as  our  climate,  too  chilly,  and  it 
does  not  care  for  our  recreations.  It  prefers  Rome 
and  Vienna,  and  the  Riviera,  and,  above  all,  Paris, 
and  returns  with  ultra-Parisian  tastes,  which  it  en- 
deavours, so  far  as  possible,  to  gratify  at  home.  The 
tragic  shade  of  the  captive  of  Sedan  sometimes  seems 
to  me  to  haunt  the  Haussmannised  avenues  of  modern 
Cairo.  The  Paris  of  Napoleon  III.  was  the  Paradise 
which  Ismail  Pasha  tried  to  reproduce  on  the  banks 
of  the  Nile ;    and  he  did   not  wholly  fail,   though  he 


172  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

wrecked  himself,  and  nearly  wrecked  his  country,  in 
the  effort. 

Of  its  kind,  and  for  those  who  like  that  sort  of  thing, 
it  is  a  fine  town,  this  new  Cairo,  with  its  palaces,  its 
legations,  its  handsome  public  buildings,  its  hotels, 
its  theatres  and  cafes-chantants,  its  pleasant  resi- 
dential suburbs,  and  its  general  air  of  brisk  activity. 
When  I  saw  the  city  first  it  was  supposed  to  be  a  little 
despondent  financially.  The  Egyptian  land  boom 
had  collapsed  and  many  people  who  were  very  rich 
on  paper  a  few  months  before  were  economising  and 
retrenching ;  and,  moreover,  Egypt  had  been  ad- 
versely affected  by  the  misfortunes  of  the  European, 
and  particularly  the  American,  stock  markets,  and  the 
hotel  keepers  were  sadly  deploring  the  paucity  of 
wealthy  visitors  during  the  present  season.  But  to 
the  outward  eye  there  seemed  no  particular  sign  of 
depression.  The  great  hotels  gave  their  weekly  dances, 
and  the  scene  was  gay  with  brilliant  uniforms  and 
jewelled  shoulders  ;  visitors  and  residents  dined  luxuri- 
ously in  the  restaurants  and  took  tea  on  the  terraces ; 
the  streets  were  thronged  with  lively  crowds  on  foot ; 
and  in  the  roadways  landaus  and  motor-cars  jostled 
the  broughams  of  Egyptian  ladies,  their  faces  visible 
under  the  thin  gauze  veil  which  Mussulman  conven- 
tion still  demands  from  the  one  sex,  even  as  it  rigor- 
ously prescribes  the  invariable  red  tarboosh  above  the 
frock-coat  or  tweed  suit  of  the  most  Europeanised 
members  of  the  other. 


CAIRO   IMPRESSIONS  173 

The  most  attractive  spot  in  modern  Cairo  is  the  out- 
let of  the  great  iron  bridge  which  crosses  the  Nile 
near  the  Museum  of  Antiquities  and  the  Kasr-en-Nil 
barracks  of  the  Army  of  Occupation,  where  you  may 
see  T.  Atkins,  Esquire,  leaning  out  of  the  windows  in 
his  shirt-sleeves,  or  punting  a  football  about  on  the 
parade-ground.  Not  far  off  is  the  British  Agency, 
which  every  cabdriver  knew  as  'Lordy  Cromer's 
house,'  long  after  Sir  Eldon  Gorst  had  come  to  sit  in 
the  seat  of  power.  In  the  morning  the  bridge  is  crossed 
by  long  trains  of  Arabs  and  fellahin  from  the  outlying 
villages,  with  loaded  camels  and  donkeys ;  in  the 
afternoon  by  strings  of  polo  ponies,  and  by  fashion- 
able carriages  taking  out  ladies  to  pay  calls  upon  their 
friends  in  the  Ghezireh.  This  Ghezireh  is  the  large 
island  in  the  Nile  where  the  English  live  when  they 
can  afford  it.  Here  the  more  prosperous  officials  and 
professional  men  abide  in  spacious  villas  with  pretty 
gardens,  and  here  is  the  Khedivial  Sports  Club,  where 
the  British  colony  plays  polo  and  golf  and  tennis  in 
the  afternoons,  and  holds  its  race  meetings.  It  is  a 
patch  of  well-to-do  middle-class  Britain  with  which 
Egyptian  society  has  small  part  or  lot. 

This  is  new  Cairo.  The  old  Cairo  exists,  the  Cairo 
of  the  bazaars,  the  mosques,  the  swarming  Moham- 
medan population,  the  narrow  lanes,  and  tall,  over- 
hanging houses,  with  barred  and  trcllised  windows. 
Some  of  it  is  a  little  cockneyfied  too.  The  main  high- 
way, the  famous  Musky,  is  not  what  it  was;   its  shops 


174  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

are  about  as  Oriental  as  those  in  the  Tottenham  Court 
Road,  and  many  of  the  wares  displayed  might  equally 
well  be  purchased  in  London,  or  New  York,  or  Vienna. 
But  it  is  still  picturesque  with  its  cosmopolitan  and 
diversified  throng :  Greeks,  Syrians,  Copts,  Arabs, 
Italians,  Jews,  Mohammedan  peasants,  Cairo  trades- 
folk and  workpeople,  fakirs,  beggars,  English  officers 
in  khaki,  American  girls,  native  women,  black-robed 
and  (more  or  less)  veiled.  Penetrate  into  the  narrow 
streets  leading  to  the  right  and  left,  and  you  may 
breathe  a  somewhat  less  diluted  atmosphere ;  but, 
even  here,  the  Greek  and  Italian  names  over  the  bazaar 
booths  are  numerous,  and  in  the  very  middle  of  one 
dark  and  malodorous  lane  I  saw  a  bold  inscription  to 
the  effect  that  Dr.  Somebody,  graduate  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Philadelphia,  was  prepared  to  supply  patients 
with  advice  and  medicine.  Compared  with  the  bazaar 
quarter  of  Indian  cities,  that  of  Cairo  strikes  one  as  a 
little  dull  and  neutral  tinted  ;  for  the  monotonous  fez, 
and  the  dirty  blue  and  black  and  white  robes  of  the  la- 
bouring people,  are  poor  substitutes  for  the  brightly- 
dyed  cottons  and  variegated  turbans  of  Bombay,  Delhi, 
or  Jaipur.  In  one  respect  old  Cairo  is  Eastern  enough. 
For  filth  and  darkness  it  need  fear  no  comparison. 
Its  uncleansed  lanes  are  slippery  with  mud  or  smothered 
in  dust,  and  they  are  lighted  ineffectively,  or  not  at  all, 
save  by  the  faint  gleam  of  lanterns  from  the  open  stalls. 
If  you  chance  to  get  into  one  of  these  lanes  on  the  night 
of  a  Mohammedan  wedding  you  may  see  the  whole 


CAIRO    IMPRESSIONS  175 

place  lit  by  a  line  of  waving  torches,  dancing  in  the 
hands  of  a  crowd  of  friends  of  the  family,  and  the  dark 
fronts  of  the  houses  illuminated  by  festooned  red 
lamps,  and  then  the  scene  is  one  of  Salvator  Rosa-like 
picturesqueness.  But  native  Cairo  did  not  strike  me 
as  a  favourable  example  of  municipal  regulation,  and 
for  a  town  which  has  lived  for  thirty  years  under  the 
progressive  hand  of  British  officialism  it  is  not  quite 
what  one  could  wish. 

To  the  judicious  visitor  the  attraction  of  this  city  is 
neither  its  Western  veneer  nor  its  Eastern  squalor,  but 
its  specimens  of  Oriental  art  in  some  of  its  most  fas- 
cinating phases.  The  Museum  of  Arabian  Antiquities 
is  almost  as  interesting  as  the  Egyptian  Museum,  where 
are  gathered  the  mummies  and  sarcophagi  and  other 
treasures  from  the  rifled  tombs  and  temples  of  the 
ancient  dynasties.  Moslem  art,  in  its  flowering  day, 
was  never  so  ambitious  or  imposing;  but  it  produced 
delicious  mosaics,  marvellously  carved  and  fretted 
woodwork,  splendid  doors  and  lamps  and  caskets  of 
chased  bronze,  and  lovely  glass,  in  white  as  pure  as  the 
summer  cloud  and  in  blue  as  deep  as  the  autumn  sea. 
In  among  the  narrow  lanes  and  huddled  houses  you 
will  come  suddenly  upon  an  old  mosque,  sometimes 
dark  and  dirty,  but  perhaps  with  a  noble  recessed  door- 
way, or  a  beautiful  cupola,  resting  lightly  and  grace- 
fully on  its  throne,  with  its  tall  guardian  minarets 
beside  it.  Those  who  think  that  Mohammedanism 
means  necessarily  stagnation  and  barbarism  will  alter 


176  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

their  opinion,  when  they  have  studied  the  mosques 
of  Cairo,  and  considered  what  Islam  produced  in  its 
great  periods  of  culture.  The  mosque  of  Sultan  Hasan 
was  completed  in  the  year  of  the  Prophet  762,  which  is 
a.d.  1360,  and  it  is  not  unworthy  to  rank  beside  some  of 
the  noblest  of  contemporaneous  Christian  cathedrals. 
When  you  look  on  the  sumptuous  decoration  of  its 
lofty  and  superb  porch,  on  the  splendid  poise  of  its 
minaret,  and  the  majestic  arches  which  crown  the 
recesses  of  its  inner  court,  you  may  think  that  the 
architects  of  the  Califate  were  fit  compeers  of  the 
master-builders  of  the  Western  churches.  The  Egyp- 
tians have  always  regarded  this  mosque  as  the  finest 
in  the  world,  and  they  say  that  Sultan  Hasan  ordered 
the  right  hand  of  the  designer  to  be  cut  off  that  he 
might  not  build  another  to  vie  with  it. 

The  mosque  of  Hasan  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  mass  of 
rock  called  the  Citadel.  On  the  Citadel  itself,  in  front 
of  the  walls  and  battlements  of  the  mediaeval  fortress, 
there  is  a  great  modern  mosque,  the  mosque  of  Mehemet 
AH,  visible  all  over  the  city,  with  its  huge  dome  and 
two  conspicuous  towers  —  no  bad  memorial  of  the 
bold  adventurer  who  would  have  tumbled  the  Turk 
out  of  Asia  Minor,  and  restored  the  Eastern  Califate, 
but  for  the  interference  of  the  Western  Powers.  The 
Citadel  is  the  last  crag  of  the  mountain  ridge  called 
the  Mokattam  Hills,  which  strides  across  the  desert, 
and  ends  abruptly  at  the  river  plain  whereon  Cairo 
rests.     A  great  city,  seen  from  an  adjacent  height,  is 


CAIRO    IMPRESSIONS  177 

always  impressive ;  the  view  of  Cairo  from  the  Citadel 
at  evening  is  of  unique  magnificence,  if  only  because 
of  the  pageant  of  strange  colour  that  commonly  follows 
the  Egyptian  sunset.  The  sea  of  flat,  grey  roofs, 
broken  by  domes  and  cupolas  and  turrets,  lies  under 
a  veil  of  purple,  shading  away  to  smoky  blackness  on 
one  horizon,  and  glowing  in  astonishing  banks  of  orange 
and  amber  and  crimson  on  the  other.  Across  the 
gleaming  streak  of  the  Nile  the  plain  stretches  in  a 
band  of  green  and  then  of  level  drab. 

Suddenly  the  eye  as  it  travels  westwards  is  caught 
by  the  two  mighty  wedges  of  the  Pyramids,  looming 
in  dim  immensity  through  the  evening  haze.  Seen 
at  close  quarters  and  by  day,  the  Pyramids  look  disap- 
pointingly insignificant.  There  are  no  buildings  about 
them  to  give  the  scale,  and  with  their  rough  surfaces 
of  dusty  yellow  they  are  only  two  more  big  sandhills 
among  the  adjacent  mounds  and  dunes  of  the  desert. 
One  thinks  that  their  builders  would  have  done  better 
to  plant  them  in  the  midst  of  a  city  whose  edifices 
would  have  served  to  give  the  measure  of  the  stupen- 
dous tumuli.  We  are  constantly  told  that  the  greatest 
Pyramid  covers  exactly  the  area  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields. 
I  sometimes  wish  it  were  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields, 
thrusting  its  blunt  point  into  the  clouded  sky  far  above 
the  tumultuous  roofs  and  climbing  spires  of  London. 
As  it  is,  you  must  be  miles  away  to  gain  the  full  effect 
of  the  great  barrows.  You  see  them  best  in  the  stretch 
of  desert  on   the  opposite  side  of  the  Nile,   between 

N 


178  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Heluan  and  Cairo,  or  from  the  ridge  of  the  Mokattam 
Hills.  Then  you  perceive  that  the  monument  of 
'Cheops'  and  its  fellow  are  only  the  culminating  peaks 
of  a  chain,  the  Mont  Blanc  and  Monte  Rosa  of  a  range 
of  pyramids  strung  out  for  miles  along  the  plain. 
Veritable  mountains  they  seem  as  they  rise  boldly  from 
the  level  ground.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  they  are 
only  some  three  or  four  hundred  feet  high,  instead  of 
as  many  thousands  ;  or  that  these,  among  the  greatest 
works  of  men's  hands,  are  also  the  oldest  that  are 
left  to  us. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
IN  THE   DELTA 

To  the  tourist  Egypt  is  a  land  of  tombs,  temples, 
touts,  and  hotels,  a  land  of  desert  and  sun-baked  sand. 
But  there  is  another  Egypt  which  the  tourist  does 
not  know :  the  Egypt  of  the  alluvial  plain  between 
Cairo  and  the  sea,  the  Egypt  of  the  agricultural  villages 
where  they  grow  the  cotton  crop,  and  of  the  busy  pro- 
vincial towns  where  they  store  and  sell  it.  Tantah 
and  Damanhur  are  certainly  not  so  interesting  as 
Luxor ;  but  to  those  whose  concern  is  with  the  present 
and  future  rather  than  with  the  remote  past  they  are 
perhaps  as  instructive. 

An  excursion  into  the  Delta  is  not  easily  carried  out 
unless  the  visitor  has  relations  with  Englishmen  or  in- 
fluential natives  who  have  official  or  business  interests 
in  that  part  of  the  country.  There  are  few  hotels  or 
pensions,  no  guides  or  donkey-boys,  and  no  facilities 
for  the  pleasure  traveller;  therefore,  for  board  and 
lodging  and  the  means  of  locomotion  away  from  the 
railway,  the  inquirer  must  be  indebted  to  the  good 
offices  of  friends.  Properly  introduced,  he  will  find 
no  difficulty  in  this  respect;  for  hospitality  is  a  tradi- 
tion with  the  Englishman  in  the  East  as  it  is  with  the 

179 


180  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Oriental  himself.  The  British  element  in  the  Delta 
is  select  rather  than  numerous ;  it  consists  of  a  few- 
officials,  inspectors,  irrigation  engineers,  and  the  su- 
perior staff  of  the  banks  and  the  great  land  companies 
which  have  bought  agricultural  estates,  and  are  super- 
vising and  developing  them.  All  these  are  in  pretty 
close  contact  with  the  people,  and  they  can  tell  you 
more  about  them,  if  they  choose,  than  you  will  learn 
in  the  Cairo  Government  offices. 

It  was  with  one  of  these  gentlemen,  the  manager  of 
an  Anglo-Egyptian  land  syndicate,  an  accomplished 
Arabic  scholar,  and  a  man  who  knows  the  fellah  and 
the  fields  through  and  through,  that  I  stayed  in  the 
heart  of  the  Delta,  and  made  some  acquaintance  with 
the  people  of  Egypt  who  are,  and  always  have  been, 
the  peasantry.  The  real  Egypt  is  not  the  Egypt 
of  the  towns  :  these  are  largely  alien  settlements,  with 
the  European,  Greek,  Syrian,  Armenian,  and  other 
extraneous  elements  disproportionately  represented. 
The  genuine  native,  the  autochthon,  born  of  the  Nile 
silt,  is  a  delver  of  the  soil,  as  he  was  before  the  Moslem 
or  the  Romans  came.  His  aspect  when  you  come  upon 
him  at  work  in  his  dykes  and  ditches  is  startlingly 
reminiscent  of  the  ancient  monuments.  In  appear- 
ance, colouring,  physical  conformation,  he  is  like  the 
serfs  of  Pharaoh ;  he  has  the  same  high  shoulders,  he 
wears  the  same  close-fitting  skull-cap,  he  uses  the  same 
tool,  the  small  curved  adze,  and  scratches  the  soil  with 
the  same  primitive  plough  drawn  by  bullocks.     And 


IN   THE    DELTA  181 

no  doubt  his  mud-walled  huts  and  his  tastes  and  habits 
and  ideas  have  suffered  no  greater  change. 

An  hour's  journey  by  the  main  line  that  links  Cairo 
with  Alexandria,  a  short  run  on  the  excellent  light 
railway  system  that  spreads  its  useful  network  over 
the  Delta,  and  a  drive  of  some  five  miles,  and  we  had 
reached  the  large,  square,  whitewashed  building  where 
I  was  to  stay.  As  we  went  along  I  saw  fresh  samples 
of  the  real  Egypt,  and  wondered  more  and  more  to 
find  it  so  little  like  the  Egypt  of  tradition  and  the  pic- 
ture books.  It  had  been  raining  heavily,  and  the 
primitive,  unmetalled  roads  were  sodden  with  mire. 
Those  people  who  still  believe  the  pleasing  old  myth 
of  the  geography  books,  that  Egypt  is  a  'rainless' 
country,  should  have  been  with  us  on  that  drive  to  see 
the  horses  smoking  and  straining  in  the  effort  to  drag 
the  clumsy  arabiyah  through  a  muddy  compost  that 
clogged  the  wheels  and  caked  on  the  axles  till  at  length 
the  machine  stuck  fast  and  had  to  be  extricated  by  a 
gang  of  toiling  peasants  with  ropes  and  planks.  They 
should  have  accompanied  us  the  next  day  when  we 
rode  into  Damanhur,  with  the  ponies  splashing  to 
the  stirrup-leathers  in  pools  of  viscous  water.  I  have 
never  seen  a  much  muddier  town  than  Damanhur 
was  that  day,  and  its  conditions  made  one  reflect  alike 
on  the  Egyptian  winter  and  the  benefits  of  municipal 
self-government ;  for  the  place  enjoys  the  advantage  of 
a  native  municipality.  But,  in  justice  to  the  climate, 
let  me  add,  I  was  earnestly  assured  that  I  had  fallen 


182  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

upon  an  exceptionally  bad  spell  of  weather,  and  that 
the  locality  is  not  often  visited  by  showers  of  such 
volume.  Indeed,  on  my  second  day  the  sun  came 
out,  and  it  was  bright  and  clear  and  even  warm  in  the 
afternoon,  though  at  night  I  shivered  under  my  rugs 
and  overcoats.  I  was  in  a  flat  and  fertile  land  :  a 
great  level  of  bright  green  everywhere,  intersected  by 
raised  dykes  and  straight  canals  crossing  and  re-crossing 
one  another,  so  that  wherever  you  looked  there  was  the 
gleam  of  water.  All  over  the  fields,  just  raised  above 
them  on  small  mounds  so  as  to  be  clear  of  the  flood  in 
the  days  of  basin  irrigation,  were  dotted  small  villages 
with  low  brown  houses,  and  here  and  there  the  white  or 
yellow  or  faint  blue  cupola  and  minaret  of  a  mosque. 
This  Egypt !  It  might  almost  have  been  Holland, 
with  the  scattered  palm  trees  for  windmills,  and  the 
gaunt  buffaloes  and  rusty  camels  for  sleek  bullocks 
and  heifers. 

The  estate  I  visited  was  typical  in  many  ways  of 
the  changes  that  have  passed  over  Egypt.  It  had 
belonged  —  that  is  to  say,  it  had  been  forcibly  seized 
—  by  the  Khedive,  Said  Pasha,  the  father  of  Ismail, 
and  by  him  handed  over  to  a  Turkish  officer  about  the 
Court.  This  landlord  built  the  great  white  house  on 
the  demesne,  and  removed  the  villagers  from  a  neigh- 
bouring hamlet,  so  as  to  have  them  near  at  hand.  Their 
huts,  with  the  barns  and  byres  of  the  proprietor,  were 
clustered  untidily  round  the  manor  house,  which  was 
raised,  as  usual,  on  its  small  patch  of  ground  elevated 


Slati.n   Pasha,  G.C.V.O. 


IN    THE    DELTA  183 

above  flood-mark.  It  had  once  been  a  place  of  some 
pretension,  with  an  avenue  of  acacia  trees  leading  up 
to  the  doorway ;  but  the  Osmanli  owners,  busy  in 
Cairo,  neglected  the  estate  which  gradually  fell  into 
confusion,  and  was  being  cut  up  among  numerous 
struggling  tenants,  none  of  them  doing  too  well,  owing 
to  the  poor  condition  of  the  irrigation  works. 

Then  came  the  English  occupation  and  the  new 
Public  Works  Department.  The  old  canals  were 
cleaned  and  repaired,  new  ones  were  made,  and  the 
property  swiftly  revived.  The  land  became  valuable, 
changed  hands  at  higher  prices,  and  attracted  the  notice 
of  various  speculators,  who  bought  parcels  of  it  and 
sold  again  at  a  profit.  Greek  tradesmen  and  others 
from  the  towns  were  considerable  holders  or  buyers. 
We  passed  a  large  farm  on  the  road  belonging  to  a 
merchant  in  Alexandria  which  I  was  assured  could  not 
have  been  worth  less,  at  the  current  valuation  of  land, 
than  a  hundred  thousand  pounds.  It  was  a  safe  and 
lucrative  proceeding  to  buy  land  in  the  Delta  a  few 
years  ago.  The  astute  operator  waited  till  he  was  told 
by  his  agents  that  certain  Englishmen,  in  shabby 
jackets,  had  been  seen  in  the  neighbourhood  with  meas- 
uring chains  and  spirit  levels.  That  meant  that  the 
Irrigation  Department  was  going  to  work  on  the 
canals.  Then  was  the  time  to  get  credit  from  the  bank 
and  tempt  the  fellahin  to  sell  at  something  above  the 
market  rate ;  and  after  that  it  was  only  necessary  to 
sit  on  the  land  till  the  works  were  finished,  and  the 


184  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

value  had  trebled  or  quadrupled,  and  sell  —  if  you 
could.  It  was  a  good  game ;  but  not  a  few  people 
in  Egypt  are  regretting  that  they  ever  took  a  hand  in 
it.  They  committed  the  common  error  of  holding 
on  too  long,  writing  up  their  assets  gaily  as  nominal 
prices  rose,  but  declining  to  realise.  Then  the  crash 
came,  and  everybody  wanted  to  sell  at  once,  but  there 
were  no  buyers,  and  the  banks  refused  to  give  further 
credit ;  and  thus  it  happens  that  there  are  still  a  good 
many  persons  in  Cairo  and  Alexandria  who  were 
almost  millionaires  —  on  paper  —  a  little  while  ago, 
and  are  very  badly  in  want  of  ready  cash  at  the  present 
moment. 

Non  raggionam  di  lor;  at  least  not  just  now.  The 
peasants,  who  bought  land  to  farm,  not  to  sell,  were 
not  much  affected  by  the  collapse,  and  the  irrigation 
works  are  all  to  their  advantage.  As  I  went  round  with 
my  friend  the  expert  he  pointed  out  to  me  how  much 
had  been  done  in  the  last  few  years  to  restore  value  to 
the  soil.  In  the  evil  days  when  the  basin  system  had 
been  allowed  to  fall  into  disorder,  and  before  the  new 
perennial  canals  had  been  developed,  a  large  part  of 
this  fertile  Delta  tract  had  gone  back  to  desert.  For 
the  land  is  good  only  on  condition  that  it  is  looked  to 
with  close  and  constant  attention.  There  are  other 
countries  where  Nature  repairs  her  own  ravages  with- 
out the  aid  of  man.  It  is  not  so  in  Egypt,  where  the 
natural  forces  must  always  be  diligently  watched  and 
controlled  or  they  will  do  more  evil  than  good.     The 


IN    THE    DELTA  185 

Delta  soil  is  impregnated  with  salt,  which  always  tends 
to  come  up  to  the  surface  if  the  land  is  left  fallow  too 
long,  or  if  it  is  insufficiently  drained.  Drainage  is 
as  important  as  irrigation,  and  so  is  the  rotation  of 
crops,  and  the  use  of  artificial  manures,  especially 
under  the  perennial  system.  When  only  the  flood 
water  of  the  Nile  was  poured  over  the  fields  the  rich 
mud  provided  much  of  the  sustenance  that  was  needed. 
But  now  that  the  thin  white  water  is  used  as  well  more 
artificial  nutriment  is  requisite.  The  cotton  culture, 
which  adds  so  largely  to  the  annual  income  of  Egypt, 
involves  some  danger  of  reducing  the  capital  of  the 
country.  Cotton  is  a  very  exhausting  crop,  and  may 
impoverish  the  soil  if  it  is  not  planted  in  due  rotation 
with  cereals  and  pulses,  which  put  back  some  of  the 
elements  that  the  greedy  little  bush  has  withdrawn. 
This  is  of  course  understood  by  the  great  land  com- 
panies, which  farm  scientifically,  and  pay  much  atten- 
tion to  rotation  and  drainage.  Even  to  my  amateurish 
eyes,  the  difference  between  the  progressive,  and  the 
stagnating,  holdings  was  apparent.  There  would  be 
two  blocks,  practically  identical  in  site  and  situation, 
lying  side  by  side  along  the  course  of  a  canal,  one  occu- 
pied by  the  company  and  the  other  by  native  pro- 
prietors :  the  former  was  worth  perhaps  £100  an  acre, 
while  the  latter  was  unsaleable  at  half  that  price. 

The  fellah,  however,  if  not  very  eager  to  adopt 
modern  methods,  is,  within  his  limits,  a  good  farmer. 
A  knowledge  of  the  soil,  of  the  seasons,  of  the  habits 


1 86  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

of  grains  and  roots  and  vegetables,  of  the  efficiency  of 
water  applied  to  land,  had  been  bred  into  him  for 
generations.  Indeed,  one  of  my  informants  went  so 
far  as  to  say  that  what  he  does  not  know  about  these 
things,  on  the  purely  empirical  side,  is  not  worth  know- 
ing. He  is  not  scientific,  but  he  is  a  highly  practical 
man,  and  he  has  been  quick  to  seize  the  advantages 
conferred  upon  him  by  the  Public  Works  Department. 
The  irrigation  officers  are  the  only  English  officials 
with  whom  he  comes  in  actual  contact,  and  their  ac- 
tivity he  understands  and  appreciates.  He  knows  well 
enough  that  they  are  the  persons  by  whom  the  choked 
ditches  have  been  cleansed  and  straightened  and  the 
new  waterways  dug,  that  they  will  see  that  he  gets  the 
supply  of  water  to  which  he  is  entitled,  and  that  they 
perform  this  service  without  being  incited  thereto  by 
means  of  bribes.  They  know,  too,  that  when  the 
department  requires  a  draft  of  labour,  men  will  not  be 
impressed  by  force,  and  compelled  to  work  without 
payment  or  reward.  The  duty  of  keeping  the  Nile 
banks  and  the  irrigation  dykes  in  order  has  been  per- 
formed by  forced  labour  from  time  immemorial.  One 
of  Lord  Cromer's  great  reforms  was  the  abolition  of 
the  corvee.  Now  the  State,  as  an  employer,  pays  its 
servants  for  their  work.  The  labour,  however,  is 
still  not  entirely  free.  When  there  is  danger  of  a  flood 
or  the  breach  of  an  embankment  a  sort  of  levee  en  masse 
of  the  neighbouring  villagers  takes  place.  The  men, 
with  their  spades  and  mattocks,  hurry  to  the  point  of 


IN    THE    DELTA  187 

peril,  and  work  as  desperately  as  if  they  were  throwing 
up  entrenchments  round  a  beleaguered  city,  while  the 
women  and  children  bring  up  faggots  and  earth  in 
baskets.  In  such  a  case  no  compulsion  is  necessary ; 
for  all  the  peasants  know  well  enough  the  results  that 
will  follow  if  the  water  overcomes  the  defences,  and 
all  are  anxious  to  avert  the  calamity. 

It  is  a  poor  little  place  to  look  at,  the  Egyptian  vil- 
lage —  a  mere  cluster  of  mud-huts  thrown  together 
promiscuously.  Some  of  the  houses  are  flat-roofed  ; 
but  that  kind  of  construction  needs  to  be  supported 
by  timber,  which  costs  money,  and  a  great  many  of 
the  huts  have  domed  roofs  and  look  like  rather  large 
beehives.  The  villagers  own  huge  flocks  of  pigeons, 
and  keep  them  in  squat,  square  towers,  with  battle- 
ment tops,  which  have  quite  a  mediaeval  and  fortified 
aspect.  In  front  of  the  village  there  may  be  a  small 
group  of  date  palms ;  there  will,  in  any  case,  be  a  pond 
in  which  the  inhabitants  wash  their  clothes,  their 
beasts,  and  themselves,  and  from  which,  unless  they 
are  near  the  Nile,  they  also  draw  their  supply  of 
drinking  water.  To  induce  the  people  to  refrain  from 
emptying  their  refuse  into  this  receptacle  is  one  of  the 
tasks  of  the  sanitary  inspectors.  It  is  not  an  easy 
one  :  the  fellah  has  been  living  for  a  few  thousand  years 
without  paying  any  particular  regard  to  sanitation, 
and  does  not  see  the  necessity  of  it.  Yet  there  is 
progress.  I  have  heard  that,  in  some  of  the  villages 
threatened  by  plague,  the  headmen,  or  omdehs,  with- 


188  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

out  any  official  pressure,  have  themselves  insisted  on 
the  water  being  boiled  before  being  used  for  drinking 
purposes. 

But  the  fellah  does  not  take  to  new  ideas  easily ;  he 
has  all  the  peasant's  ingrained  distrust  of  innovation, 
and  a  natural  suspicion,  due  to  many  centuries  of 
oppression,  of  administrative  activity.  Indeed,  he  is 
typical  of  the  peasant  type  —  slow,  obstinate,  suspi- 
cious, extremely  shrewd  in  all  matters  that  come  within 
his  comprehension,  a  bundle  of  prejudices  and  fanatical 
superstitions ;  withal,  an  excellent  fellow  in  many 
ways,  temperate,  sober,  thrifty,  and  laborious,  kindly  in 
his  domestic  relations,  and  easily  attached  to  those  who 
treat  him  well.  He  has  a  sense  of  humour,  and  his  sun- 
burnt, anxious  countenance,  wrinkled  by  much  thought 
about  crops  and  floods  and  pennyworths  of  clover,  will 
easily  relax  into  a  hearty  grin  at  a  good  broad  joke. 

Squalid  as  his  hamlet  looks,  and  scanty  as  is  the 
furniture  of  his  hut,  he  is  well  off  as  things  go  in  East- 
ern countries ;  he  has  enough  to  eat  and  drink  and  to 
buy  himself  the  simple  clothes  he  needs  and  his  few 
luxuries,  such  as  bad  coffee  and  cigarettes.  He  can 
get  a  living,  though  he  works  hard  for  it,  and  if  he  can 
repress  the  land-hunger  which  impels  him  to  take  more 
acres  than  he  can  work  profitably,  and  so  brings  him 
into  the  clutches  of  the  moneylender  or  the  Greek, 
who  makes  usurious  advances  on  the  cotton  crop, 
he  may  do  well.  Like  peasant  proprietors  everywhere 
he  is  too  apt  to  borrow  too  freely  and  recklessly  and 


IN   THE    DELTA  189 

to  mortgage  his  holding  or  his  crops ;  and  it  is  to 
repress  this  tendency  that  Lord  Kitchener's  new  Five 
Feddans  Law  has  been  enacted,  whereby  the  holder 
of  less  than  five  acres  is  prohibited  from  pledging  his 
land  as  security  for  a  loan  and  cannot  be  sold  up  by  his 
creditor.  This  legislation,  imitated  from  the  Punjab, 
has  done  well  in  India,  and  may  be  useful  in  prevent- 
ing the  Egyptian  small  holder  from  delivering  himself 
into  bondage  to  the  local  usurer  or  land  shark.  But 
the  Delta  farmer  is  not  always  a  small  holder,  nor  is  he 
always  as  poor  and  humble  a  cultivator  as  the  Indian 
ryot.  He  makes  no  outward  show,  but  he  is  often  a 
man  of  substance.  Many  a  fellah  who  lives  in  a  shanty 
with  no  more  visible  wealth  than  a  couple  of  bullocks, 
a  donkey,  and  some  pots  and  pans,  could  dig  up  from 
somewhere  a  hoard  of  sovereigns  and  piastres.  On 
one  estate  I  visited  I  was  present  at  an  interview  be- 
tween the  overseer  and  a  man  who  held  a  lease  of  1000 
acres  at  £5  an  acre.  A  farmer  who  could  pay  £5,000 
a  year  by  way  of  rent  would  be  a  person  of  some  pre- 
tension in  most  countries.  But  this  man  was  work- 
ing like  a  peasant  on  his  own  land,  and  he  was  dressed 
in  the  same  shabby  dark  blue  cotton  gown  as  the  fel- 
lahin.  I  heard  another  case  of  a  land  company 
selling  an  estate  to  a  fellah  for  £40,000.  When  the 
documents  were  executed,  and  the  time  came  for  pay- 
ing the  money,  the  purchaser  went  back  to  his  house 
and  brought  the  whole  amount  in  bags  of  gold  loaded 
upon  donkeys. 


190  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

No  one  knows  how  many  millions  are  hoarded  and 
buried  under  the  soil  of  Egypt.  Slowly,  very  slowly, 
the  fellah  is  beginning  to  learn  that  it  is  safe  to  be  rich, 
that  a  man  may  save  money  without  having  his  taxes 
raised  upon  him  in  defiance  of  the  assessment,  or  with- 
out being  compelled  to  disgorge  to  the  local  officials 
under  the  kourbash.  He  still  likes  to  keep  his  invest- 
ments under  his  own  hand,  where  he  can  find  them 
when  wanted ;  but  this  is  perhaps  rather  from  habit 
than  reason ;  for  he  has  discovered  by  this  time  that 
the  era  of  arbitrary  exaction  is  over,  and  that  he  has 
his  'rights'  which  do  not  depend  upon  the  caprices  of 
the  Pasha  or  the  relative  venality  of  the  nearest  tax- 
gatherer. 

He  leads  a  dullish  life  in  the  village,  with  few  amuse- 
ments, save  the  Mohammedan  holidays,  an  occasional 
wedding  or  funeral,  and  the  long  talks  at  evening, 
sitting  on  the  ground  with  his  fellows  when  the  day's 
work  is  done.  Physically,  in  spite  of  those  insanitary 
customs  which  have  been  mentioned,  he  is  finely  devel- 
oped, thin-flanked,  broad-shouldered,  straight-backed, 
with  a  wide,  flat  chest,  and  sinewy  arms ;  and  the 
women,  too,  when  you  see  them  coming  from  the  well 
at  evening,  with  the  great  pitchers  poised  on  their 
heads,  moving  lightfully  and  gracefully, 

'With  foot  so  firm 
To  crush  the  serpent  and  spare  the  worm,' 

you  think    they  might  well  be  the  mothers  of  strong 


IN    THE    DELTA  191 

men.  Forty  centuries  of  exercise  in  swinging  up  the 
water-lever  and  wielding  the  pickaxe  have  given  the 
fellah  a  notable  physique.  In  due  course,  the  shaduf 
will  be  superseded  by  the  steam-pump,  and  the  spade 
by  a  mechanical  digger,  and  the  peasant  will  crouch 
all  day  long  inside  a  close  cabin  turning  taps  and  filling 
oil-cans.  The  water  will  be  laid  on  in  pipes,  and  the 
women,  instead  of  walking  like  caryatids  under  their 
urns,  will  be  bending  over  a  stocking  frame  in  a  fac- 
tory. Industrial  civilisation,  like  other  luxuries,  is 
not  bought  without  a  price. 


CHAPTER  XX 
MR.   VAPOROPOULOS 

Something  has  been  said  in  previous  chapters  of  that 
speculative  fever  which  possessed  Egypt  for  several 
years,  and  the  collapse  that  followed.  How  these  things 
operated  in  certain  individual  cases  may  be  learnt  by 
considering  the  history  of  that  enterprising  Greek,  Mr. 
Aristides  Vaporopoulos,  whom  a  classically-minded 
friend  of  mine  calls  Aristides  the  Moderately  Just. 

His  father  was  an  innkeeper  in  Corfu  during  that 
queer  forgotten  episode  when  the  Ionian  Islands  were 
a  British  Protectorate,  and,  of  all  people  in  the  world, 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  the  Lord  High  Commissioner 
thereof.  Vaporopoulos  the  elder  migrated  to  Malta 
and  set  up  a  tavern  in  Valetta.  Here  his  son  was 
born  ;  and  that  is  why  he  was  baptised  William  Albert, 
as  well  as  Aristides,  and  why  he  always  calls  himself 
'Mr.,'  and  has  been  known  to  refer  to  the  British 
Islands  as  'home.' 

In  doing  odd  jobs  about  the  inn  the  youth  early 
acquired  a  useful  miscellaneous  education  and  consid- 
erable knowledge  of  the  world.  He  served  thin  wine 
to  Italian  sailors,  coffee  and  lemonade  to  his  own 
countrymen    and    the    island    aborigines,    occasionally 

192 


MR.    VAPOROPOULOS  193 

bad  spirits  to  adventurous  British  bluejackets.  He 
picked  up  English,  Italian,  French,  and  gained  much 
experience  of  mankind  in  various  aspects,  mostly  shady. 
This  instructive  course  of  studies  was  continued  in 
divers  towns  and  cities  of  the  Mediterranean.  Dis- 
agreeing with  his  father  about  a  little  matter  of 
accounts,  he  took  service  as  a  waiter  in  Palermo ; 
subsequently  he  migrated  to  one  of  the  big  hotels  in 
Naples,  where  the  wider  world  was  opened  to  him ;  he 
saw  something  of  fashionable  travellers  from  the  North, 
and  added  some  German  to  his  budget  of  languages. 
Thus  equipped,  after  a  brief  dalliance  with  Athens  and 
Constantinople  and  Alexandria,  where  he  learnt  Arabic, 
he  settled  in  Cairo,  and  his  linguistic  attainments 
secured  him  an  appointment  as  dragoman. 

Then  arrived  the  autumn  of  1884,  when  Lord  Wolse- 
ley's  unwieldy  Gordon  Relief  Expedition  was  toiling 
up  the  Nile  in  whaleboats,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
great  tourist  agents.  There  was  a  keen  demand  for 
interpreters  with  this  force.  Aristides,  an  intelligent 
young  fellow  of  two-and-twenty  at  this  time,  obtained 
an  appointment,  and  went  to  the  front,  officially  at- 
tached to  an  Egyptian  brigade.  He  escaped  the  perils 
of  the  campaign  unscathed,  and  drifted  down,  after 
it  was  over,  to  Assuan,  where  he  invested  the  savings 
from  his  not  illiberal  pay  in  purchasing  the  good-will 
of  a  small  bazaar  stall.  He  sold  sham  jewellery  to 
the  natives  in  summer,  and  sham  Sudan  relics  to  tour- 
ists in  the  winter,  and,  being  reasonably  honest  and 


194  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

extremely  shrewd,  he  did  well,  and  speedily  enlarged 
his  operations.  In  three  years  he  was  able  to  exchange 
his  booth  in  the  bazaar  for  a  shop  on  the  river  front, 
with  a  proper  European  plate-glass  window,  and  a 
scrubby  compatriot  of  his  own  as  assistant  behind  the 
counter ;  in  five  years  he  had  a  branch  establishment 
in  Luxor ;  and  not  long  afterwards  he  was  in  a  position 
to  set  up  his  headquarters  in  Cairo. 

His  great  opportunity  came  with  Kitchener's  cam- 
paigns in  1897-8,  and  he  seized  it  promptly.  He  went 
with  the  army,  but  not  this  time  in  any  capacity  so 
humble  as  that  of  interpreter.  Grown  older  and 
bolder,  he  cherished  higher  aims.  He  turned  most  of 
his  available  assets  into  cash,  and  started  for  the 
Sudan  with  a  large  miscellaneous  consignment  of  goods 
and  stores,  such  as  men  in  need  of  many  things  would 
be  likely  to  require.  He  knew  the  natives  better  than 
the  Intelligence  Department;  his  'mobile  transport' 
moved  faster  than  Girouard's  railway  corps.  And  so 
when,  after  a  toilsome  march  under  the  tropic  blaze, 
the  army  arrived  at  its  camping  ground,  it  found  Mr. 
Vaporopoulos  already  installed  in  a  shanty  of  biscuit 
tins  and  sackcloth,  his  wares  neatly  set  out  on  the 
earth ;  himself,  his  Syrian  clerk,  his  Hellenic  assist- 
ants, unclean  to  look  upon,  but  unwearyingly  assidu- 
ous, prepared  to  supply  perspiring  and  exhausted  war- 
riors with  a  variety  of  very  welcome  commodities  — 
at  a  price. 

Such  enterprise  could  not  fail  to  be  rewarded.     The 


MR.    VAPOROPOULOS  195 

tins  of  sardines,  bottled  peas,  mixed  pickles,  jam,  In- 
dian cigars,  went  off  on  the  top  of  the  market.  What 
young  officer  who  had  lost  his  last  pocket-handkerchief 
could  hesitate  to  pay  Vaporopoulos  half-a-crown  for 
a  small  square  of  cheap  Manchester  print  ?  Five 
shillings  did  not  seem  too  much  for  a  bottle  of  Bass 
to  a  man  half  dead  with  thirst,  who  had  not  seen  beer 
for  many  a  day.  But  Aristides  did  not  limit  himself 
to  retail  trade.  He  could  get  camels  and  donkeys 
somehow  while  the  military  authorities  were  looking 
for  them,  and  was  always  prepared  to  take  a  contract 
for  such  articles  as  wire  rope,  army  biscuit,  forage,  and 
railway  stores.  The  prices  paid  gave  a  splendid  profit 
in  spite  of  the  cost  of  transport,  and  before  Omdurman 
was  entered  Aristides  had  become  a  man  of  means. 
When  the  new  Khartum  was  being  constructed  he 
was  one  of  the  first  to  get  a  block  of  land,  and  set  up 
a  general  store',  which  prospered  rapidly.  His  business 
grew  by  leaps  and  bounds,  he  was  soon  able  to  open 
branches  all  over  the  Sudan,  and  presently  he  was  not 
merely  a  shopkeeper,  but  a  merchant  dealing  in  ivory, 
timber,  gum,  and  rubber,  with  his  agents  at  Kassala, 
Rumbeck,  Gondokoro,  and  even  in  the  Congo  State 
and  British  East  Africa.  Then  he  came  back  to  Cairo, 
engaged  larger  premises  and  more  clerks,  and  devoted 
himself  to  consolidating  what  had  now  become  a  highly 
important  and  lucrative  trading  concern. 

He  was  a  big  man  by  this  time.     He  had  relations 
with  all  sorts  of  people  in  high  official  stations ;    the 


196  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

banks  knew  and  honoured  him,  and  his  draft  would 
have  been  cashed  at  sight  over  half  Africa.  He  found 
no  difficulty  in  extending  his  activities  in  various 
profitable  directions.  He  bought  building  land  in 
Cairo  and  the  suburbs,  financed  transactions  in  the 
agricultural  districts,  and  took  a  hand  in  the  great 
cotton  and  sugar  speculations.  Vaporopoulos  was 
beginning  to  be  known  as  an  individual  to  reckon  with, 
and  cosmopolitan  financiers,  Armenian,  Belgian,  Eng- 
lish, sought  his  acquaintance.  Then,  for  the  first 
time  in  his  busy  life,  he  turned  to  spend  money  as  well 
as  make  it,  and  began  to  develop  social  ambitions. 
Hitherto  he  had  associated  mostly  with  his  own  com- 
patriots, shaved  once  a  week,  and  changed  his  collar 
every  other  day ;  when  he  wanted  recreation,  which 
was  seldom,  he  went  to  an  Italian  cafe,  drank  coffee 
and  a  little  absinthe,  played  a  game  of  billiards,  and 
sometimes  visited  a  reeking  native  music-hall,  where 
half-naked  dancing  women  contorted  themselves  for 
his  edification.  His  European  friends  gave  him  ampler 
ideas.  He  dealt  with  a  competent  tailor,  frequented 
the  bars  and  restaurants  of  the  fashionable  hotels, 
and  discovered  that  a  good  many  of  the  patrons  of 
those  establishments  were  eager  to  make  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  person  with  his  reputation  for  riches  and 
business  enterprise. 

His  friends  were  not  of  one  sex  only.  Some  ladies, 
both  of  the  visiting  and  resident  colony,  were  quite 
willing   to   cultivate    his    society.     Aristides  was   still 


MR.    VAPOROPOULOS  197 

a  bachelor,  a  dapper  little  middle-aged  gentleman, 
supposed  to  be  even  wealthier  than  he  really  was. 
He  had  always  been  too  much  occupied  with  money- 
making  to  think  of  love-making,  though  he  had  vaguely 
intended  to  marry  a  good-looking  girl  of  his  own  race 
when  he  could  find  time  to  attend  to  the  matter.  Now, 
under  the  genial  rays  of  popularity  and  success,  his 
ideas  took  a  wider  sweep.  His  big,  new  motor-car 
was  often  to  be  seen  outside  the  Ghezireh  Palace 
Hotel,  or  the  Mena  House,  or  the  Grand  at  Heluan, 
with  Aristides  himself  taking  tea  on  the  terrace,  in 
intimate  converse  with  goddesses  in  Paris  chiffons, 
and  lively  young  maidens  from  England  and  America, 
who  treated  him  with  a  free-and-easy  Anglo-Saxon 
familiarity  which  he  found  extremely  agreeable. 

It  was  in  this  phase  that  he  became  acquainted  with 
those  distinguished  members  of  the  British  aristocracy, 
the  Hon.  Augustus  Cashless,  and,  his  sister  Ella,  both 
of  whom  were  rudely  described  by  too  candid  friends 
as  being  in  Egypt  'on  the  make.'  The  Hon.  Augustus, 
after  a  variegated  career  in  politics  and  the  City,  had 
scented  the  Egyptian  land  boom  from  afar.  To  his 
ingenious  brain,  and  the  fertile  suggestion  of  a  well- 
known  promoter,  a  little  off  colour  at  the  moment, 
was  due  the  conception  of  the  Great  Sesostris  Land 
Company,  to  which  the  attention  of  the  British  invest- 
ing public  was  being  earnestly  besought.  London 
society,  thanks  to  Mr.  Cashless's  connections,  was  a 
good  deal  interested,  and  various  influential  persons 


198  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

had  accepted  allotments  of  shares.  The  market,  how- 
ever, was  a  little  shy,  and  wanted  to  see  some  solid 
money,  especially  Egyptian  money,  in  the  venture 
before  it  would  bite  freely. 

Aristides  was  brought  into  the  concern  through  the 
agency  of  the  Hon.  Ella,  whose  acquaintance  he  had 
made  at  a  Ghezireh  tea  party.  Miss  Cashless  was  not 
exactly  in  her  first  youth,  and  the  stress  of  a  dozen 
London  seasons  had  made  her  look  a  little  anxious. 
But  her  figure,  aided  by  the  efforts  of  a  too  confiding 
Grafton  Street  dressmaker,  was  still  agreeable ;  and 
she  had  red-gold  hair,  which  made  the  heart  of  Aris- 
tides jump  each  time  he  looked  at  it.  The  lady  was 
extremely  gracious  to  the  little  Greek,  whose  thoughts 
began  to  take  a  vague,  alluring  turn.  Could  it  be  — 
after  all,  he  was  rich  and  not  quite  a  fool  ?  '  You  are 
so  clever,  dear  Mr.  Vaporopoulos,'  said  Ella  to  him, 
as  he  drove  her  back  to  the  Semiramis  Hotel  in  his 
motor-car ;  and  Aristides  pondered  over  the  words 
through  a  night  of  sleepless  happiness.  Privately, 
Miss  Cashless  referred  to  him  in  conversation  with  her 
intimates  as  'a  little  Greek  bounder  who  is  goin'  to 
put  Gus  and  me  up  to  all  sorts  of  good  things.'  She 
introduced  him  to  her  brother  who,  to  oblige  his  sister, 
was  quite  willing  to  allow  him  to  participate  in  the 
advantages  of  the  Great  Sesostris  Company.  A  year 
before  Aristides  would  have  hesitated  to  touch  that 
promising  concern  with  the  end  of  a  bamboo  pole. 
But  love  blinded  his   keen  black  eyes,  and  ambition 


MR.    VAPOROPOULOS  199 

clouded  his  habitual  shrewdness.  Before  he  quite 
knew  it,  he  was  deep  in  the  scheme ;  a  few  more  drives 
and  tea  parties  with  Ella  and  most  of  his  available 
capital,  and  a  little  more,  was  locked  up  in  the  Great 
Sesostris,  of  whose  shares  a  hundred  thousand  or  so 
stood  in  his  name. 

His  holding,  paid  for  in  hard  cash,  gave  the  neces- 
sary fillip  to  the  company.  The  Hon.  Augustus  went 
back  to  London  and  worked  the  affair  vigorously, 
in  society,  in  the  financial  press,  and  on  the  stock 
Exchange.  Paris  and  Brussels  and  the  advertising 
outside  brokers  became  interested,  and  the  quotations 
began  to  rise.  The  £1  shares  went  up  to  50J.,  and 
those  in  the  know  were  commonly  supposed  to  be 
waiting  till  they  were  worth  a  five  pound  note.  As  a 
fact,  they  were  cautiously  unloading,  and  only  deterred 
from  clearing  out  altogether  by  the  consciousness  that 
the  market  was  more  buoyant  than  stable,  and  that 
any  serious  selling  would  bring  it  down.  They  agreed 
to  hold  on  a  few  months  longer. 

Those  were  months  for  Aristides  of  pleasant  musing. 
Miss  Ella  had  gone  home  at  the  end  of  the  winter  sea- 
son, but  she  wrote  him  little  notes  occasionally,  and 
she  had  given  him  her  portrait  —  of  a  few  years' 
earlier  date  —  to  look  at.  Aristides  left  his  mercantile 
business  mainly  to  his  subordinates,  not  to  its  advan- 
tage ;  and  dreamed  of  becoming  a  millionaire  when  the 
time  came  for  selling  his  Sesostris  shares.  He  never 
meant  to  keep  them,  of  course;    he  knew  too  much 


2oo  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

about  the  property  in  Egypt  for  that :  but  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  his  kind  friends  in  London  he  knew  very 
little,  and  he  did  not  understand  how  fragile  was  the 
foundation  on  which  they  had  builded  their  boom. 

It  was  slighter  than  they  themselves  believed.  One 
morning,  they  awoke  to  find  the  slump  upon  them, 
and  the  castle  tumbling  about  their  ears.  Everything 
Egyptian  went  down  with  a  run,  and  the  huge  inflated 
Sesostris  speculation  was  the  first  to  go.  In  a  panic, 
Mr.  Cashless's  West-end  friends  hurried  off  to  their 
brokers,  and  threw  their  shares  on  the  market,  only 
to  render  the  situation  hopeless.  In  three  days 
'  Great  Caesars,'  as  the  dealers  called  them,  had  fallen 
to  par ;  in  a  fortnight  they  were  at  rubbish  prices, 
and  nobody  would  touch  them.  'What  about  Egypt, 
Gus  ?'  said  the  Hon.  Ella  to  her  brother.  'Egypt,  my 
dear  girl,'  said  Mr.  Augustus,  'is  U.P.,  so  far  as  you  and 
I  are  concerned,  and  I  don't  think  you  need  give  your- 
self the  trouble  to  write  any  more  letters  to  that  little 
Greek  microbe.' 

It  was  a  severe  blow  to  Mr.  Vaporopoulos.  For  some 
time  his  position  was  decidedly  shaky.  He  had  plunged 
rather  beyond  his  resources,  and  the  banks  were  calling 
in  their  loans,  and  insisting  on  immediate  repayment. 
There  was  a  moment  when  the  ugly  word  liquidation 
loomed  rather  insistently  before  him.  But  he  pulled 
himself  together  and  came  through.  His  mercantile 
business  was  still  sound,  and  though  he  had  crippled 
it  a  good  deal  by  his  financial  adventures,  and  found  it 


MR.    VAPOROPOULOS  201 

necessary  to  dispose  of  several  of  his  stores  and  branches 
to  the  astutest  of  his  Syrian  assistants,  there  was 
enough  to  live  on.  He  abandoned  his  dreams,  alike  of 
love  and  ambition,  and  entered  upon  a  severe  course 
of  retrenchment  and  hard  work.  The  motor-car  was 
sold,  the  expensive  flat  given  up,  and  the  fashionable 
hotels  saw  him  no  more.  He  resumed  his  old  habits, 
took  to  working  thirteen  hours  a  day  again,  and  when 
I  last  saw  him  he  was  behind  the  counter  of  one  of 
his  own  shops  earnestly  endeavouring  to  sell  a  box  of 
extremely  bad  Hamburg  cigars  at  the  price  of  the  best 
Havanas.     Aristides  will  be  all  right. 

The  shares  of  the  Great  Sesostris  Land  Company 
stand  at  a  nominal  quotation  of  51.  6d.  to-day ;  and 
if  you  would  care  to  have  some  you  need  only  apply 
to  the  Hon.  Augustus  Cashless,  who  will  be  happy  to 
furnish  you,  at  that  very  moderate  figure,  with  quite 
as  many  as  you  are  likely  to  require. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
THE  SCHOOLS  OF  THE   PROPHET 

It  may  not  occur  to  many  visitors  that  Cairo  is  a 
university  town.  Such,  however,  it  is,  and  as  such  it 
is  known  and  regarded  with  respect  all  over  the  king- 
doms and  principalities  of  Islam. 

And  here  I  am  not  alluding  to  the  New  University 
College  which  has  been  recently  instituted,  to  give 
instruction  in  Western  science  and  literature,  under 
the  patronage  of  the  Khedive  and  the  encouragement 
of  the  British  adviser  to  the  Ministry  of  Education. 
Millions  of  Moslem,  who  know  nothing  of  the  Khedive, 
and  very  little  of  the  English,  are  interested  in  Cairo, 
not  because  it  is  a  great  and  wealthy  city,  the  capital 
of  Egypt,  but  because  it  is  the  seat  of  the  university  of 
El-Azhar.  For  that  establishment  is  the  chief  seminary 
of  the  whole  Mohammedan  world,  the  gathering- 
ground  for  all  who  would  make  themselves  proficient 
in  the  learning  of  Islam,  the  training  school  for  the 
priests  and  doctors  of  the  Faith. 

In  the  mere  number  of  its  students  and  its  professors 
it  surpasses  all  academies  and  colleges,  not  merely  of 
the  East,  but  of  the  West  also.  There  are  over  10,000 
boys  and  men,  of  all  ages  from  twelve  to  sixty,  at  El- 

202 


THE  SCHOOLS  OF  THE  PROPHET  203 

Azhar,  and  the  teachers,  the  sheikhs,  ulemas,  and 
tutors,  are  counted  by  hundreds.  Its  constituency, 
like  those  of  the  European  universities  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  is  cosmopolitan  rather  than  national :  it  draws 
its  pupils  from  every  part  of  the  three  continents  in 
which  orthodox  Mussulmans  dwell.  Even  as  students 
used  to  come  from  Scandinavia  and  Sicily  to  Paris 
and  Gottingen,  so  they  now  flock  to  El-Azhar  from  all 
the  lands  of  the  Prophet.  There  are  Syrians,  Moors, 
Algerians,  Turks,  Tunisians,  Bosnians  from  the  Adri- 
atic, and  Mongols  from  near  the  Pacific,  Afghans, 
Punjabis,  Abyssinians  and  Somalis,  blue-eyed  Cir- 
cassians, and  ebon-hued  negroes.  It  is  a  microcosm 
of  Mohammedanism,  a  museum  of  those  various  popu- 
lations —  white,  brown,  yellow,  and  black  —  who  are 
the  children  of  Islam.  There  is  no  place  like  it  any- 
where, and  nothing  in  Cairo  better  worth  seeing. 

I  waited  outside  in  the  mud  of  the  squalid  lane, 
while  the  guardians  of  the  gate  inspected  the  letter  of 
introduction  I  had  brought  with  me  from  the  Sheikh 
Ahmed  El-Azhary,  the  head  of  the  Wakfs  bureau,  a 
learned  doctor  in  Moslemism  and  likewise  an  en- 
lightened administrator  who  knows  and  admires  the 
ways  of  the  English.  My  credentials  being  found 
sufficient,  I  was  invited  to  put  felt  slippers  over  my 
boots,  and  thereupon  conducted  through  the  maze  of 
vast  courts  and  wide  corridors.  The  place  is  confusing 
owing  to  its  size  and  the  mass  of  humanity  which 
crowds  every  inch  of  the  enormous  floor  space.     It  is 


2o4  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

like  knocking  off  the  top  of  an  ant-hill  and  looking 
down  upon  the  myriads  of  black  insects  that  swarm 
about  the  galleries. 

Men  and  boys  were  in  heaps  and  knots  and  circles 
all  over  the  ground.  After  passing  through  the  outer 
quadrangles  you  come  upon  the  Liwan,  or  great  hall 
of  lectures.  It  is  an  immense  covered  shed,  with  a  low 
roof  supported  by  a  forest  of  columns  of  every  shape 
and  size.  There  are  nearly  four  hundred  of  them,  all 
robbed  from  old  churches  and  temples.  The  classes 
and  the  teachers  are  scattered  over  the  floor,  packed 
so  close  together  that  often  it  is  difficult  to  make  your 
way  between  two  of  the  groups.  Here  and  there  the 
professor  has  a  wooden  chair  and  a  table ;  but  as  a  rule 
teachers  and  pupils  are  alike  sitting  or  squatting  on  the 
ground,  with  their  robes  gathered  under  their  bare 
feet  and  their  shoes  laid  out  in  front  of  them.  The 
walls  and  pillars  and  planking  are  fairly  clean,  but  not 
all  the  students  are  ;  some  are  even  filthy  and  ragged, 
and  a  reek  of  promiscuous  humanity  fills  the  air.  The 
din,  too,  is  bewildering ;  for  all  the  teachers  are  talk- 
ing to  their  classes  at  the  same  time,  and  half  the 
classes  are  repeating  or  reciting  something,  or  droning 
verses  from  the  Koran  or  the  service  books,  bending 
their  bodies  up  and  down  in  unison  with  the  monotonous 
cadence. 

The  black-bearded  sheikhs  put  a  good  deal  of  energy 
into  their  work,  shouting,  expostulating,  and  explain- 
ing vigorously,  but  their  efforts  did  not  always  meet 


THE    SCHOOLS    OF   THE    PROPHET     205 

with  much  response.  According  to  the  rules,  no  pupils 
are  admitted  below  the  age  of  sixteen ;  but  this  regula- 
tion is  not  strictly  observed,  for  many  of  the  students 
were  mere  children.  These  boys  were  alert  and  inter- 
ested, and  when  there  was  a  class  mainly  composed  of 
them  the  drone  rose  into  a  shrill  chorus,  and  the  bodies 
were  swung  up  and  down  like  those  of  a  crew  in  a 
racing  eight.  The  elder  students  were  of  all  ages  and 
conditions  —  some,  quite  grey  and  old ;  some,  intelli- 
gent young  Syrians  and  Egyptians,  with  clear-cut, 
good  features ;  some,  wild  Arabs  from  Yemen ;  some, 
mere  grinning  savages  from  Somaliland  and  the  Upper 
Nile.  Some,  too,  were  evidently  taking  in  the  words 
of  the  teacher  with  attention,  while  others  lolled  about 
half  asleep,  listless,  and  stupid,  perhaps  from  hunger, 
for  many  of  these  learners  are  in  the  lowest  depths  of 
poverty.  No  fees  are  paid  by  the  students,  the  whole 
expenses  of  the  establishment,  including  the  salaries 
of  the  teachers,  being  met  by  the  Administration  des 
Wakfs,  a  sort  of  Egyptian  Ecclesiastical  Commission, 
which  disposes  of  the  vast  revenues  belonging  to  the 
mosques  and  religious  and  charitable  foundations.  A 
considerable  number  of  the  students  are  in  the  position 
of  the  sizars  and  poor  scholars  in  our  own  mediaeval 
universities;  they  not  only  obtain  their  education  free 
of  charge,  but  they  also  receive  a  daily  allowance  of 
food  and  a  small  stipend. 

About  a   thousand  are  lodged  and  boarded   at  El- 
Azhar  itself;  others  find  quarters  in  some  of  the  neigh- 


206  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

bouring  mosques.  Many  are  married,  and  live  with 
their  wives  and  children  somehow  and  somewhere  in 
the  purlieus  of  the  native  city.  After  the  student  is 
admitted  to  El-Azhar  he  stays  practically  as  long  as  he 
pleases.  Some  do  remain  half  a  lifetime,  dawdling 
over  the  sacred  texts,  droning  over  their  lessons  day 
after  day,  hanging  about  the  Liwan  long  after  they 
have  lost  any  interest  they  ever  had  in  learning,  and 
any  real  desire  to  enter  the  priesthood,  simply  because 
they  have  cut  themselves  adrift  from  the  active  world, 
and  would  not  know  where  to  turn  for  food  and  shelter 
and  companionship  if  they  were  to  leave  the  great 
swarming  caravanserai. 

On  the  upper  floors  are  the  cubicles  in  which  the 
in-college  students  live.  They  are  bare  little  oblong 
apartments,  scantily  furnished  (but  one  does  not  have 
much  furniture  in  the  East),  watertight  and  white- 
washed, and  kept  in  fair  order  by  the  university  ser- 
vants. Some  of  the  inmates  are  ragged,  dirty,  and 
churlish ;  others  clean  and  courteous.  In  one  room 
I  found  four  intelligent  and  polite  Syrians,  with  whom, 
by  the  aid  of  my  guide,  an  English-speaking  young  clerk 
in  the  Wakfs  office,  I  entered  into  conversation.  One 
of  the  four  was  a  middle-aged  man,  who  had  been  for 
ten  years  at  El-Azhar.  The  full  course  lasts  twelve 
years,  and  those  who  aspire,  so  to  speak,  to  a  degree 
in  honours,  may  stay  two  or  three  years  longer  or  more. 
This  Syrian  seemed  to  think  that  his  ambition  to  be- 
come a  really  learned  doctor  in  Islam  would  hardly 


THE    SCHOOLS    OF    THE    PROPHET       207 

be  satisfied  until  he  had  spent  at  least  fifteen  years  at 
the  university.  His  companions  were,  by  this  standard, 
almost  freshmen,  youths  of  two  or  three-and-twenty  in 
their  second  or  third  years,  and  they  regarded  their 
senior  with  fitting  respect.  None  of  these  men  belonged 
to  the  class  of  poor  students.  They  had  good  clothes, 
and  comfortable  rugs  and  coverlets  to  their  angariebs, 
and  they  showed  me,  behind  the  doors  of  a  glass-fronted 
bookcase,  quite  a  respectable  little  library  of  Moham- 
medan theological  literature,  the  gem  of  the  collection 
being  a  volume  setting  forth  in  intricate  detail  the 
genealogies  of  the  descendants  and  collaterals  of  the 
Prophet  for  several  centuries.  One  of  the  four  was 
a  young  man  of  means,  who  owned  a  silver-handled 
cane  and  perambulated  Cairo  in  a  tarboosh  and  an 
overcoat.  He  evidently  belonged  to  the  smart  set 
of  the  university,  and  had,  indeed,  as  he  explained, 
only  been  sent  there  by  his  father  in  order  that  he  might 
return  to  his  native  village  with  a  reputation  for  general 
culture  and  polish.  The  others  proposed  to  become 
ulema  and  seemed  to  be  sedulous  and  even  enthusiastic 
students. 

These  Syrians  were  pleasant,  intelligent  fellows,  all 
of  them  very  different  from  the  unkempt,  semi-civilised, 
creatures  I  saw  in  other  dormitories  ;  and  one  felt  sorry 
that  their  alert  brains  were  being  wasted  and  fuddled 
over  the  antiquated  futility  that  passes  for  learning  at 
El-Azhar. 

For  this  seminary  has  been  the  workshop  and  arsenal 


208  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

of  Moslem  obscurantism.  Modern  science,  modern 
literature,  modern  history,  modern  philosophy  were, 
until  quite  lately,  almost  unknown.  A  little  algebra 
was  taught,  and,  I  believe,  some  astronomy,  though  I 
fancy  that  in  the  latter  branch  of  study  the  system  is 
that  which  was  accepted  before  the  age  of  Copernicus. 
Lord  Cromer  tells  an  instructive  story  in  this  connec- 
tion. He  once,  he  says,  asked  the  head  of  the  univer- 
sity whether  his  profession  taught  that  the  sun  went 
round  the  earth  or  the  earth  round  the  sun.  The 
learned  person  replied  that  he  was  not  sure,  that  one 
nation  taught  one  way,  and  another  a  different  way, 
that  his  own  general  impression  was  that  the  sun  went 
round  the  earth,  but  that  he  had  never  paid  much 
attention  to  the  subject,  which  in  any  case  was  too 
unimportant  to  merit  serious  discussion. 

The  anecdote  is  characteristic  of  the  whole  spirit  of 
El-Azhar.  It  lives  in  the  past ;  it  is  hedged  in  by  a 
narrow  formalism,  and  its  main  interest  is  in  the 
dogmas,  the  theology,  and  the  traditions  of  Moham- 
medanism. Some  literary  culture  its  pupils  obtain, 
and  some  ethical  training;  they  may  learn  to  write 
that  rich  and  varied  language,  the  classical  Arabic, 
with  elegance  and  precision ;  and  they  are  taught 
respect  for  the  moral  virtues  which  Islam  enjoins  — 
temperance,  justice,  mercy,  and  patient  endurance. 
But  the  years  which  the  'Alim'  spend  in  its  crowded 
cloisters  are  for  the  most  part  devoted  to  theological 
formulae  and  religious  studies.     They  learn  by  heart 


THE  SCHOOLS  OF  THE  PROPHET  209 

long  passages,  not  so  much  from  the  Koran  itself  as 
from  the  annotators  and  expositors  of  that  book  in  the 
second  and  third  degree ;  they  pore  over  the  commen- 
tators on  the  commentaries.  Or  they  read  the  lives 
of  Mohammed,  and  the  lives  of  his  wives,  and  com- 
panions, and  relatives,  elaborate  explanations  of  the 
ritual  of  the  mosques,  intricate  genealogical  tables  of 
the  descendants  of  the  Prophet. 

It  is  this  kind  of  knowledge,  laboriously  acquired 
and  committed  to  memory,  which,  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  qualifies  a  man  to  become  an  ulema,  to  leave  the 
courts  of  El-Azhar,  and  to  go  back  to  be  a  priest  or 
teacher  or  doctor  of  the  law  among  his  own  people. 
One  class,  when  I  visited  the  Liwan,  was  reciting  in 
monotonous  recitative  from  the  Koran ;  another  was 
hearing  a  lecture  on  the  different  ceremonials  to  be 
observed  in  fasting;  another  on  the  benefits,  practices, 
and  effects  of  prayer ;  another  on  the  history  of  the 
Prophet.  I  only  noticed  one  which  occupied  itself 
with  anything  approaching  scientific  studies,  and  this 
was  where  an  elderly  sheikh  was  teaching  a  few  youths 
some  elementary  arithmetic. 

The  Principal  of  the  El-Azhar  University  receives 
a  salary  of  about  £1200  per  annum,  and  is  a  highly 
important  personage,  dividing  with  the  Grand  Mufti 
and  the  Grand  Kadi  at  Constantinople  a  sort  of  spirit- 
ual headship  of  Islam,  with  the  duty  of  safeguarding 
the  religious  law  and  observances.  With  him  and  his 
university  the  English  in  Egypt  have  little  to  do;    it 

T 


210  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

stands  outside  our  sphere  of  direct  influence,  nor  does 
the  adviser  to  the  Minister  of  Education,  who  keeps  so 
vigilant  an  eye  on  the  other  schools  of  the  country, 
control  the  curriculum  of  this  huge  theological  seminary. 
So  long  as  they  do  not  interfere  with  civil  order  and 
justice,  the  'Alim'  of  El-Azhar  are  free  to  prescribe 
their  own  canons  to  their  co-religionists  in  Egypt  and 
elsewhere. 

The  graduates  of  El-Azhar  carry  a  great  influence 
all  over  the  Moslem  world,  and  are  the  missionaries 
of  the  strictest  orthodoxy  and  conservatism.  Many 
enlightened  Mohammedans  wish  El-Azhar  to  be  trans- 
formed into  a  genuine  modern  university,  with  its 
vast  resources  employed  for  more  useful  objects.  They 
would  like  to  see  the  fanatical  sheikhs  supplemented, 
if  not  replaced,  by  teachers  properly  trained  in  learn- 
ing and  science.  But  El-Azhar  is  immensely  powerful, 
it  has  a  hold  upon  the  whole  body  of  priests  and  ulemas, 
and  it  has  a  papal  contempt  for  the  temporal  authority. 
The  present  Khedive,  a  devout  but  progressive  Mussul- 
man, fully  alive  to  the  value  of  rational  education,  has 
tried  hard  to  reform  El-Azhar,  and  has  even  threatened 
to  divert  a  part  of  the  revenue  it  draws  from  the 
Administration  des  Wakfs  to  the  purpose  of  founding 
a  modern  university.  A  serious  quarrel  arose  on  this 
ground  between  his  Highness  and  the  Chief  Sheikh, 
and  the  latter  dignitary  was  refused  admittance  at  the 
Khedive's  levee,  an  event  which  caused  a  prodigious 
stir    in    the    native    circles    of    Cairo.     El-Azhar    has 


THE  SCHOOLS  OF  THE  PROPHET   211 

remained  too  long  a  strange  survival  from  the  'Ages 
of  Faith,'  a  picturesque  embodiment  of  much  that  is 
most  characteristic  of  old-world  Islamism,  a  bulwark 
against  the  advance  of  that  spirit  of  intellectual  unrest 
and  inquiry  which  is  invading  Egypt  and  all  the  other 
Eastern  lands.  But  the  energy  and  determination  of 
Abbas  II  have  at  length  prevailed  even  in  this  strong- 
hold of  medievalism.  In  191 1  a  new  Law  was  pro- 
mulgated by  which  a  professional  council  of  teachers 
and  educational  experts  was  appointed  to  assist  the 
Principal,  and  the  syllabus  was  enlarged  by  the  addi- 
tion of  such  subjects  as  geometry,  hygiene,  drawing, 
and  natural  history;  and  'the  difference,'  writes  Lord 
Kitchener  in  his  Report  of  191 2,  'between  the  former 
and  the  actual  state  of  things  in  El-Azhar  is  already 
very  marked.'  Twenty  years  hence,  perhaps,  the 
professors  of  the  ancient  university  of  Islam  may  be 
more  interested  in  Mendel  than  in  Mohammed,  and  its 
students  may  be  discussing  the  problems  of  sociology 
more  earnestly  than  the  Lives  of  the  Saints.  But  the 
struggle  for  supremacy  between  the  Progressives  and 
the  Priests  is  not  yet  ended  and  it  is  likely  to  be  severe. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
THE  OCCUPATION 

Egypt,  according  to  Lord  Milner,  is  ahe  land  of 
paradox.  You  appreciate  the  force  of  that  remark 
at  many  points,  but,  perhaps,  most  of  all  when  you 
endeavour  to  come  to  close  quarters  with  the  political 
system,  which  is  full  of  the  strangest  contradictions, 
the  oddest  contrasts  between  form  and  fact,  the  reality 
and  the  conventional. 

Here,  for  instance,  is  a  curious  illustration  which  was 
brought  before  one,  at  the  state  receptions  held  by  the 
Khedive  at  the  Mohammedan  festival  of  Bairam  and 
a  few  other  occasions,  after  Lord  Cromer  had  left  the 
British  Agency  and  before  Lord  Kitchener  had  taken 
it  up.  These  Khedivial  levees  are  rather  grand  affairs ; 
for  his  Highness  is  wealthy,  and  his  court  is  carried  on 
with  as  much  display  of  the  ceremonial  side  of  royalty 
as  that  of  most  European  sovereigns  except  one  or 
two  of  the  greatest.  The  Diplomatic  Corps  is  present 
in  its  customary  array  of  decorative  man-millinery. 
One  could  observe  that  ornamental  company  as  it 
filed  past  the  Khedivial  throne  and  made  its  bow  to 
his  Highness.  The  envoys  go  in  order  of  seniority  of 
appointment,  according  to  established  etiquette ;  an 
elderly   Dutch   gentleman,    the   representative   of   the 


THE    OCCUPATION  213 

Queen  of  the  Netherlands,  first,  then  the  others  in 
due  order  —  Spaniard,  Austrian,  Russian,  German,  and 
the  rest  —  down  to  the  smaller  states  of  both  Conti- 
nents. Very  nearly  last  of  all  you  will  notice  a  slightly- 
built  young  Englishman,  looking  as  unobtrusive  as  it 
is  possible  for  anybody  to  look  in  a  laced  coat  and  gold- 
braided  trousers ;  he  takes  his  place  far  down  the  line, 
with  Swiss  and  Belgians  in  front  of  him,  and  only  a 
Swede,  of  still  more  junior  standing  than  himself, 
behind.  A  stranger  who  did  not  know  might  think 
him  a  person  of  no  particular  importance.  But  this 
happened  to  be  Sir  Eldon  Gorst,  the  representative 
of  Great  Britain,  the  virtual  ruler  of  Egypt,  the  head 
of  the  whole  administration,  with  far  more  authority 
and  much  greater  power  than  all  the  Khedive's  minis- 
ters put  together.  Technically  he  is  only  the  British 
Consul-General,  accredited  to  the  Court  of  the  Khedive, 
just  as  the  others  are.  He  can  offer  the  Khedive 
friendly  advice ;  so  also  can  the  Belgian  or  the  Portu- 
guese Consul.  Only  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
their  advice  would  be  followed,  whereas  it  is  in  the 
highest  degree  improbable  that  the  British  Agent's 
recommendation  would  be  rejected. 

This  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  strange  anomaly 
of  the  whole  political  position  in  Egypt.  There  are 
many  people  who  imagine  that  the  lower  Nile  Valley 
is  a  dependency  of  Great  Britain.  It  may  be  so  — 
more  or  less  —  in  fact;  in  theory  it  is  nothing  of  the 
kind.     Egypt    in    form    is    neither    a    dependency    of 


214  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

England  nor  is  it  an  independent  state.  It  is  still 
nominally  a  province  of  the  Ottoman  Empire.  When 
an  Egyptian  regiment  is  at  drill  you  will  hear  its 
English  officers  give  the  word  of  command  to  the  fellah 
conscripts  and  the  negro  soldiers  in  Turkish ;  for  this 
army  is  theoretically  a  part  of  the  armed  force  of  the 
Sultan  of  Turkey.  The  officers  wear  the  Turkish 
badge  on  their  helmets ;  the  colour  party  carries  a 
Turkish  ensign ;  the  generals  actually  receive  their 
commissions  countersigned  from  Constantinople.  The 
theory  does  not  bear  much  relation  to  the  facts,  nor  is 
the  administrative  or  political  life  of  Egypt  affected 
to  any  substantial  degree  by  this  fiction  of  Turkish 
suzerainty.  In  practice,  Ottoman  control  is  limited 
to  the  appointment  of  a  resident  Turkish  High  Com- 
missioner in  Cairo,  a  very  dignified  personage,  who  is 
treated  with  much  respect  by  everybody,  and  does 
nothing  at  all  except  draw  his  pay  —  rumour  hints 
that  it  does  not  always  come  quite  regularly  —  and 
engage  in  a  little  vague  intriguing.  If  Yildiz  Kiosk 
attempted  seriously  to  interfere  in  Egyptian  internal 
affairs  it  would  be  peremptorily  warned  off.  Still  the 
legal  and  diplomatic  convention  which  regards  the 
country  as  a  technically  dependent  province  of  Tur- 
key is  one  of  the  factors  in  the  international  situation  ; 
and  those  responsible  for  its  destinies  have  to  take  it 
into  account. 

Except  in  so  far  as  he  is  subject  to  the  shadowy  con- 
trol of  his  suzerain,  the  Khedive  is  the  sovereign  ruler 


THE    OCCUPATION  215 

of  an  autonomous  state.  Nothing  that  we  have  done 
since  1882  is  supposed  to  derogate  from  that  position. 
We  have  never  established  even  a  Protectorate  over 
Egypt.  When  we  first  blundered  into  the  country, 
it  was  not  with  the  smallest  intention  of  conquering 
or  annexing.  We  bombarded  Alexandria  merely  to 
save  the  lives  of  Europeans  threatened  by  a  military 
rabble ;  we  sent  Lord  Wolseley  with  an  army  to 
'restore  the  authority  of  the  Khedive,'  weakened  as 
it  had  been  by  the  revolt  of  his  mutinous  colonels. 
We  have  been  restoring  or  maintaining  the  authority 
of  the  Khedive  ever  since.  Our  few  thousand  troops 
are  not  a  British  garrison  ;  they  are  merely  the  remains 
of  the  'Army  of  Occupation'  left  behind  by  Wolseley 
to  complete  the  work  done  at  Tel-el-Kebir,  and  enable 
the  Khedive  to  preserve  the  public  order.  Our  officers 
in  the  Egyptian  regiments  and  at  the  Egyptian  War 
Office  are  not  in  the  British  service :  they  are  tempo- 
rarily 'lent'  to  the  Khedive  to  assist  him  in  the  drill 
and  discipline  of  his  own  army.  Similarly,  a  number 
of  British  civilian  officials  have  been  permitted  to  take 
service  under  the  Khedive  so  as  to  give  his  Highness 
their  aid  in  the  conduct  of  his  administration  and  the 
management  of  his  finances  ;  they  are  paid  and  em- 
ployed by  him,  not  by  England.  The  Khedive  remains 
nominally  the  head  of  the  executive  and  the  supreme 
power  in  the  state.  Every  administrative  decree, 
edict,  or  act  of  legislation  is  supposed  to  emanate  from 
him.     The    actual    Egyptian    system    is    unique.     We 


216  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

have  no  record  of  anything  quite  resembling  it  in  the 
catalogue  of  modern  constitutions  and  constitutional 
experiments.  There  is  one  set  of  persons  who  carry 
on  the  government ;  and  another  set  of  persons 
who  tell  them  how  to  do  it.  That,  perhaps,  may  find 
its  parallels  elsewhere.  But  the  peculiarity  here  is 
that  the  informal  advisory  Government  has  the  mate- 
rial and  moral  force  behind  it,  so  that  if  it  withdrew 
its  support  the  other,  the  nominal  Government,  would 
collapse.  Thus  the  advice,  when  requisite,  can  always 
take  the  substance,  if  not  the  form,  of  a  command. 

The  anomalous  situation  would  not  have  arisen  if 
we  had  chosen  to  make  full  use  of  the  right  which  we 
had  acquired  by  the  mailed  fist  in  the  beginning. 
When  Wolseley  marched  into  Cairo,  after  the  battle 
of  September  1882,  he  represented  the  only  effective 
force  in  the  country.  The  Khedive  had  been  virtually 
deposed  by  Arabi's  fifty  thousand  rebel  troops ;  and 
Arabi's  disorderly  horde  had  been  beaten  and  dispersed 
by  the  invading  army.  The  country  was  in  our  hands, 
and  we  could  have  done  what  we  pleased  with  it.  The 
obvious  course  seemed  to  be  to  hoist  the  British  flag 
on  the  citadel  at  Cairo,  appoint  an  English  Governor, 
or  declare  the  Khedive  the  Viceroy  of  the  English 
Sovereign,  and  quietly  proceed  to  administer  the  whole 
territory,  under  a  hierarchy  of  British  officials,  on  the 
Indian  model,  to  the  great  advantage  of  its  inhabitants. 
The  proceeding  would  have  involved  a  quarrel  with 
Turkey    and   probably   with    France.     Still,    in    1882, 


THE   OCCUPATION  217 

with  Germany  encouraging  us  and  Russia  quiescent, 
we  might  have  faced  the  risk. 

The  other  alternative  was  to  rescue  and  retire. 
Having  smashed  up  Arabi,  we  might  have  stayed  just 
long  enough  to  organise  a  new  army  for  the  Khedive, 
and  then  left  Egypt  to  'stew  in  its  own  juice.'  But 
that  would  have  led  to  further  outbreaks,  rebellions, 
revolutions,  another  European  intervention  of  some 
kind.     Egypt  could  not  stand  by  herself. 

We  fell  back  on  a  compromise.  We  did  not  annex 
and  we  did  not  retire.  The  Anglo-Saxon,  says  Lord 
Cromer,  asserted  his  native  genius  'by  working  a 
system  which,  according  to  every  canon  of  political 
thought,  was  unworkable.'  And  the  line  he  took  was 
that  he  would  do  all  that  was  necessary  for  Egypt 
without  accepting  the  responsibility  of  incorporating 
it  with  his  own  dominions.  'He  would  not  interfere 
with  the  liberty  of  action  of  the  Khedivial  Govern- 
ment, but  in  practice  he  would  insist  on  the  Khedive 
and  the  Egyptian  Ministers  conforming  to  his  views. 
He  would  in  theory  be  one  of  the  many  powers  exer- 
cising equal  rights,  but  in  practice  he  would  wield  a 
paramount  influence.  He  would  occupy  a  portion  of 
the  Ottoman  dominions  with  British  troops,  and  at 
the  same  time  he  would  do  nothing  to  infringe  the 
legitimate  rights  of  the  Sultan.  He  would  not  break 
his  promise  to  the  Frenchmen,  but  he  would  wrap  it 
in  a  napkin  to  be  produced  on  some  more  convenient 
occasion.     In  a  word,  he  would  act  with  all  the  practi- 


218  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

cal  common  sense,  the  scorn  for  theory,  and  the  total 
absence  of  any  fixed  plan  based  on  logical  reasoning, 
which  are  the  distinguishing  features  of  his  race.' 

The  unworkable  system  worked  mainly  because  it 
was  put  in  the  hands  of  a  body  of  exceptionally  able 
men.  England  had  the  good  luck,  or  the  good  sense, 
to  entrust  the  destinies  of  Egypt  at  this  critical  stage 
to  a  group  of  administrators  of  high  ability  and  unusual 
force  of  character.  There  were  accomplished  finan- 
ciers, such  as  Sir  Edgar  Vincent,  Sir  Auckland  Colvin, 
and  afterwards  Sir  Edwin  Palmer  and  Lord  Milner; 
military  organisers  of  the  stamp  of  Lord  Kitchener  and 
Lord  Grenfell ;  irrigation  engineers  like  Sir  Colin  Scott- 
Moncrieff,  Sir  William  Garstin,  and  Sir  William  Will- 
cocks  ;  above  all,  Lord  Cromer  himself,  the  great  pro- 
Consul,  resolute,  tactful,  far-seeing,  and  inexhaustibly 
patient,  who  never  lost  his  temper  or  his  nerve  through 
all  the  trials  of  a  most  trying  time.  Fortune  helped 
in  another  way.  The  situation,  difficult  for  every- 
body, was  particularly  difficult  for  the  titular  ruler  of 
Egypt.  Perhaps,  if  he  had  been  very  strong,  or  self- 
assertive,  or  impatient,  it  would  have  become  quite 
impossible.  Luckily  the  Khedive,  Tewfik  Pasha,  was 
none  of  these  things.  He  was  in  many  ways  an  esti- 
mable prince,  exemplary  in  his  private  life,  courteous, 
kindly,  intelligent,  and  humane.  But  his  was  an  ami- 
able, rather  than  a  powerful,  personality ;  and  the 
weakness  he  had  shown  at  the  decisive  moment,  when 
Arabi's    mutinous    regiments    assembled     before     his 


THE    OCCUPATION  219 

palace,  was  characteristic.  His  self-effacing  and  self- 
distrustful  modesty  rendered  it  easier  for  him  to  accept 
the  position  forced  upon  him  by  events,  and  enabled 
him  to  work,  as  a  more  vigorous  sovereign  might  not 
have  done,  for  the  common  benefit  of  his  shaken  realm, 
in  concert  with  his  able  and  rather  masterful  English 
'adviser.' 

His  successor,  the  present  Khedive,  who  came  to 
the  throne  young,  capable,  high-spirited,  and  ambitious, 
naturally  found  it  more  difficult  to  accommodate  him- 
self to  tutelage,  and  for  some  years  there  was  much 
friction  between  himself  and  his  English  counsellors. 
But  Abbas  II.  gradually  reconciled  himself  to  the  sit- 
uation, and  found  an  outlet  for  his  energies  and  his  un- 
doubted ability  in  schemes  for  promoting  the  material 
and  social  welfare  of  his  country  and  the  development 
of  his  extensive  estates.  So  the  system  gradually 
crystallised,  and  it  has  long  since  settled  into  the 
established  order  of  things,  and  operates  smoothly 
enough  as  a  rule.  But  it  still  depends  upon  securing 
a  high  level  of  personal  capacity  in  the  Anglo-Egyp- 
tian hierarchy,  and  maintaining  the  tradition  of  the 
famous  bureaucracy  of  the  'eighties  and  'nineties. 

The  compromise  involves  the  keeping  in  being  of  a 
full-blown  native  ministry.  Each  public  department 
has  an  Egyptian  minister  as  its  chief;  there  is  the 
Prime  Minister  and  Minister  of  the  Interior,  the 
Minister  of  War,  the  Minister  of  Education,  and  so 
on.     To  this  functionary  belong  not  only  the  emolu- 


220  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

merits,  but  also  the  outward  honours,  of  the  office. 
If  you  walk  into  the  ministerial  building  in  Cairo  you 
will  find  his  Excellency  treated  with  extreme  respect, 
seated  in  a  handsome  apartment,  attended  by  a  staff 
of  secretaries,  guards,  and  ushers.  When  you  leave 
the  Pasha's  presence  you  may  be  conducted  to  a  much 
more  modest  room,  where  a  care-worn  Englishman 
sits  at  a  desk  loaded  with  documents,  and  gives  hurried 
commands  to  clerks  and  messengers.  He  wears  the 
red  fez  on  his  head,  but  there  is  no  sign  of  high  official 
rank  about  his  person  or  his  surroundings ;  the  Minis- 
ter's portly  native  under-secretary  looks  more  imposing. 
This  busy  Briton  is  the  adviser,  nominally  the  subordi- 
nate, of  the  high-placed  chief  of  the  department, 
engaged,  at  a  moderate  salary,  to  assist  him  in  his 
work,  and  to  supply  such  good  counsel  as  he  may  be 
required  to  offer.  In  fact,  he  is  one  of  the  links  of 
that  chain  of  British  influence  which  the  Occupation 
has  drawn  about  the  Egyptian  Government.  It  is  his 
duty  to  see  that  the  business  of  the  office  is  properly 
conducted,  to  suppress  laxity  and  maladministration, 
to  insist  on  the  right  thing  being  done  and  the  wrong 
thing  being  avoided.  He  does  not  command.  He 
only  says:  'I  think  it  advisable  that  your  Excellency 
should  issue  such  and  such  an  order,'  or  'I  hear  that 
so-and-so  has  been  grossly  negligent,  and  I  hope  your 
Excellency  will  think  proper  to  reprimand  him.'  His 
Excellency  does  not  always  comply  with  this  admoni- 
tion ;   but  if  he  refuses  too  frequently,  or  on  sufficiently 


THE    OCCUPATION  221 

serious  occasions,  the  'adviser'  reports  the  matter  to 
his  own  real  chief,  the  Prime  Adviser,  the  British  Agent, 
who,  if  necessary,  would  carry  it  to  the  Khedive ;  and 
in  that  case  the  Minister  might  be  faced  by  the  alter- 
native, se  soumettre  ou  se  demettre. 

It  is  obviously  a  relation  in  which  much  depends  on 
the  personality  of  the  parties  in  it.  The  ideal  position, 
according  to  the  views  of  some  of  the  earlier  Anglo- 
Egyptian  officials,  was  that  the  minister  should  have  all 
the  dignity  and  leisure,  and  the  adviser  all  the  hard 
work  and  the  power.  They  would  have  been  well  con- 
tent to  allow  his  Excellency  to  sit  in  his  room,  smoking 
cigarettes  and  reading  a  French  novel,  only  occasionally 
rousing  himself  to  sign,  without  examining  them,  the 
documents  prepared  for  him  by  his  English  mentor. 
Things  do  not  invariably  take  that  course ;  nor  if 
Egypt  is  to  have  any  real  training  in  self-government  is 
it  advisable  that  they  should.  It  may  happen  that  the 
Egyptian  is  the  stronger  member  of  the  partnership. 
There  are  departments  of  state  in  Cairo  where  this  has 
been  the  case.  The  minister  has  more  initiative  and 
energy  than  the  adviser,  and  the  latter  has  yielded  to  his 
influence.  Tact,  however,  is  required  as  much  as 
strength,  if  this  arrangement  is  to  be  rendered  tolerable. 
An  under-secretary,  who  was  constantly  quarrelling 
with  his  nominal  chief  and  putting  pressure  upon  him, 
would  be  so  troublesome,  not  only  in  the  office,  but  to 
the  Consul-General  and  the  Home  Government,  that 
some  other  sphere  of  usefulness  would  probably  be 
found  for  him. 


222  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

It  speaks  well  for  the  adaptability  of  Englishmen  in 
difficult  circumstances  that  such  cases  have  been  rare. 
The  'unworkable  system'  has  been  made  a  success  by 
good  temper,  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  a  single- 
minded  desire  to  promote  the  interests  of  the  public 
service.  Due  credit  should  also  be  given  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  successive  Egyptian  Cabinets  who  have  done 
their  best  in  a  position  which  must  have  often  imposed  a 
strain  upon  them.  The  strain  proved  too  severe  for  the 
greatest  native  statesman  of  modern  Egypt,  the  tal- 
ented and  intellectual  Nubar,  and  it  must  always  be  a 
little  trying  for  any  ambitious  man  of  capacity  and  per- 
sonal force.  But  of  late  years  the  Khedive's  ministers 
have  usually  found  no  difficulty  in  reconciling  them- 
selves to  the  arrangement ;  and  the  best  of  them,  though 
they  may  sometimes  chafe  a  little  under  the  advisory 
hand,  acknowledge  and  appreciate  the  character  of  the 
foreigners  with  whom  they  are  compulsorily  associated, 
and  on  the  whole  get  on  very  well  with  them. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
GOVERNING  ELEMENTS,  OLD  AND  NEW 

From  what  has  been  said  about  the  character  of  the 
Occupation,  it  will  be  seen  that  to  talk  about  England 
'governing'  Egypt  is  a  misuse  of  language.  We  do  not 
govern  Egypt ;  we  only  govern  the  governors  of  Egypt. 
From  the  beginning  our  idea  has  been  that  the  actual 
administration  of  the  country  should  be  left  in  native 
hands,  with  a  certain  number  of  Englishmen  to  see  that 
things  are  properly  done.  Impatient  critics  have  some- 
times complained  of  this  complicated  system.  Why, 
they  say,  do  we  not  obtain  simplicity  and  efficiency  at 
once  by  abolishing  it,  and  establishing  a  complete 
British  civil  service,  like  that  which  accomplishes  the 
far  more  difficult  task  of  managing  the  affairs  of  the 
peoples  of  India  ? 

The  reason  is  that  we  pledged  ourselves  not  to  annex 
or  incorporate  Egypt  ourselves,  but  simply  to  prepare 
the  Egyptians  for  self-government.  It  was  a  promise 
given  in  haste  and  with  an  inadequate  knowledge  of  the 
facts.  If  we  had  known  in  1882  all  that  we  have  learnt 
since,  it  would  assuredly  not  have  been  given  at  all. 
But  given  it  was ;  and  the  policy  it  suggests  has  been 
steadily  kept  in  view.     Honestly  and  laboriously  we 

223 


224  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

have  been  trying  to  pave  the  way  for  complete  internal 
autonomy  under  native  direction.  When  this  will  be 
established  it  is  impossible  to  predict.  But  it  could 
not  be  established  at  all  if  the  bureaucracy  were  British, 
even  in  its  higher  grades,  any  more  than  there  is  any 
reasonable  chance  of  instituting  it  in  India.  Therefore, 
the  provincial  government  of  Egypt  is  entirely  native. 
The  mudirs,  or  governors,  are  all  Egyptians,  and  so  are 
their  subordinates  down  to  the  omdehs,  or  headmen,  of 
the  villages,  and  from  them  to  the  village  policemen. 
The  English  advise,  and  they  inspect.  The  mudir 
takes  his  orders  from  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  and 
the  Ministry  of  Finance.  Both  these  departments  have 
a  number  of  British  inspectors,  who  travel  round  the 
provinces,  find  out  what  the  mudirs  and  police  authori- 
ties and  revenue  officials  are  doing,  and  report  to  Cairo 
the  result  of  their  observations.  Their  reports  come 
before  the  English  advisers  at  the  various  Ministries, 
who  go  into  them,  and  are  supposed  to  see  that  action 
is  taken  where  necessary,  and  peccant  provincial  ad- 
ministrators admonished,  fined,  or  dismissed. 

Thus,  in  the  last  resort,  there  is  British  control  and 
supervision ;  but  it  is  not  direct  British  management. 
Except  in  the  Irrigation  service  —  a  highly  important 
exception  —  the  Englishmen  merely  superintend  and 
report.  The  mudirs,  the  mamurs,  or  sub-governors, 
and  the  hierarchy  under  them  in  every  province,  are 
natives.  Here  we  have  a  radical  difference  between  the 
condition  of  things  in  Egypt  and  the  Sudan.     In  the 


GOVERNING    ELEMENTS  225 

latter  territory  there  are  no  native  mudirs.  At  the 
head  of  every  province  there  is  an  Englishman  as  gover- 
nor, who  is  directly  responsible  to  the  Governor-General 
for  the  entire  administration  of  his  district.  But  then, 
the  Sudan  is  virtually  a  British  dominion.  Egypt  is 
not,  and  is  not  intended  to  be. 

The  arrangement,  all  things  considered,  is  perhaps 
the  best  that  was  possible  under  the  circumstances,  and 
it  works  rather  better  than  might  have  been  anticipated, 
though  not  without  a  certain  amount  of  friction.  One 
of  the  great  difficulties  at  the  outset  was  that  of  person- 
nel, for  in  the  East  everything  depends  on  the  man 
rather  than  his  office.  When  we  came  into  the  country 
we  found  it  badly  in  want  of  a  satisfactory  native  gov- 
erning class.  The  mass  of  the  population,  the  genuine 
Egyptian  aborigines,  are  peasants,  who  have  always 
been  ruled  from  above  and  usually  from  outside. 
There  was  no  middle  class,  except  the  mercantile  and 
professional  community  of  the  towns,  largely  foreigners 
of  one  kind  or  another  —  Syrians,  Greeks,  Armenians, 
Italians.  Then  there  are  the  Copts,  who  are  sometimes 
represented  to  be  the  genuine  descendants  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians.  In  reality  they  are  of  the  same  race  and 
origin  as  the  fellahin  ;  but  having  resisted  the  Mussul- 
man conversion  they  did  not  intermarry  with  the  Arab 
immigrants,  they  were  driven  off  the  land,  and,  like  the 
Jews  of  the  Middle  Ages,  they  took  to  trade,  and  de- 
veloped more  intellectual  interests  than  their  agricul- 
tural neighbours.     They  make  excellent  clerks,  scrive- 

Q 


226  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

ners,  bookkeepers,  surveyors,  and  minor  officials  of  all 
kinds.  They  are  intelligent  and  industrious  ;  but  they 
are  no  more  capable  of  assuming  serious  responsibility 
or  power  than  the  peasantry,  and  being  Christians  they 
are  not  suitable  persons  to  exercise  authority  over  a 
Mohammedan  community. 

There  are  a  certain  number  of  well-to-do  landowners, 
scattered  over  Egypt,  who  constitute  something  in  the 
nature  of  a  squirearchy.  Some  of  them  are  the  descend- 
ants of  prosperous  fellahs,  who  did  well,  laid  by  money, 
added  more  and  more  feddans  to  their  holdings,  un- 
til they  became  rich  men  with  large  estates.  Such  a 
landowner  would  sometimes  leave  the  untidy  village 
street,  build  himself  a  good  house  on  his  own  land,  with 
his  barns  and  stables  and  servants'  quarters  about  it, 
and  live  the  life  of  a  country  gentleman  in  a  moderate 
fashion.  It  is  that  life  to  which  the  Egyptian  really 
aspires  when  he  follows  his  own  instincts ;  and  even 
the  townsman  wants  to  get  land  if  he  can.  Merchants, 
tradesmen,  officials,  like  to  invest  their  savings  in  real 
property.  I  met  a  young  clerk  in  one  of  the  public 
offices  in  Cairo  who  had  been  educated  at  an  American 
mission  school  and  spoke  English  well.  He  was  three- 
and-twenty,  and,  of  course,  married  and  a  parent.  He 
told  me  that  he  had  saved  enough  out  of  his  salary  to 
buy  a  small  estate  in  the  Delta.  His  wife  and  children 
and  his  mother-in-law  and  an  uncle  managed  the  farm, 
and  he  went  down  there  himself  during  the  long  summer 
vacation  when  most  of  the  Cairo  offices  go  to  sleep. 


GOVERNING    ELEMENTS  227 

Everybody,  indeed,  in  an  Egyptian  town  seems  to 
have  an  interest  in  the  land.  The  Berberine  servant 
who  acts  as  chambermaid  in  your  hotel  is  probably  the 
tenant  of  a  tiny  patch  of  earth,  with  a  date  palm  and  a 
mud  hut;  and  there  he  labours  during  the  summer  and 
autumn,  leaving  his  family  to  look  after  it  when  he 
comes  down  to  Cairo  in  the  cool  season  to  gather  the 
piastres  of  the  stranger.  And  the  trader  who  has  made 
money  will  often  own  an  estate  worth  thousands  of 
pounds,  left  in  charge  of  an  azar  or  bailiff,whose  accounts 
he  will  check  from  time  to  time.  Such  a  man,  when  he 
retires  from  business,  may  himself  set  up  as  a  country 
gentleman,  even  as  prosperous  shopkeepers  do  else- 
where. This  class  has  increased  since  the  Occupation. 
Land  is  a  better  investment  than  it  ever  was,  and  it  is 
more  secure.  Trade  has  been  extraordinarily  prosper- 
ous, the  banking  system  has  developed,  and,  above  all, 
it  is  now  safe  to  be  rich.  A  man  can  have  a  good  house, 
and  exhibit  the  outward  signs  of  wealth,  without  the 
risk  that  his  superfluity  will  be  squeezed  out  of  him  by 
tax  collectors,  or  extorted  from  him  as  bribes  by  the 
retainers  of  the  Pasha.  It  is  no  longer  necessary  to 
conceal  all  evidence  of  means,  live  in  ostentatious 
penury,  and  bury  your  money,  if  you  have  any,  in  a  hole 
in  the  earth.  That  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  land  is 
more  sought  after  than  ever,  and  why  the  boom  in  real 
estate  attained  such  gigantic  proportions. 

Some  of  the  old-fashioned  Egyptian  squires,  who  have 
been  settled  on  their  estates  for  a  generation  or  two,  and 


228  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

farm  their  own  land,  are  much  looked  up  to  by  their 
poorer  neighbours,  and  exercise  a  good  deal  of  influence. 
They  seem  to  have  many  of  the  characteristic  qualities 
which  belong  to  their  condition.  I  became  acquainted 
with  a  patriarch  of  this  kind  who  was  an  estimable  old 
gentleman.  He  lived  in  a  great,  whitewashed,  untidy 
old  house,  with  large,  bare  rooms  on  the  ground  floor, 
and  latticed  apartments  above  in  which  his  women-folk 
abode.  He  told  me,  by  the  way,  that  his  wife  had 
never  been  downstairs  or  set  foot  outside  the  house,  had 
never,  in  fact,  moved  beyond  the  confines  of  her  second- 
storey  prison,  for  twenty-five  years.  This  proprietor 
was  a  rigorous  Mohammedan  of  the  old  school,  very 
particular  in  the  performance  of  his  religious  observ- 
ances, and  in  the  habit  of  getting  up  at  an  unearthly 
hour  of  the  morning  to  say  his  prayers.  But  he  was 
alive  to  modern  progress  in  agricultural  affairs,  and 
farmed  with  a  certain  amount  of  science,  attending 
carefully  to  the  rotation  of  crops  and  paying  much 
attention  to  drainage.  There  was  nothing  of  the 
aristocrat  about  him ;  he  spoke  to  the  peasants  on  terms 
of  absolute  equality,  and  treated  even  a  minor  native 
official  of  the  Public  Works  Department  with  ceremoni- 
ous deference.  He  was  a  mine  of  information  about  all 
agricultural  matters,  and  though  he  could  barely  read 
he  managed  the  complicated  accounts  of  his  estate  by 
an  efficient  rule-of-thumb  method  of  his  own.  He  com- 
plained bitterly  of  the  depredations  of  his  nazar,  but  I 
do  not  think  that  this  functionary  could  often  have  got 


GOVERNING    ELEMENTS  229 

the  better  of  him.  He  had  a  shrewd  and  humorous 
judgment  of  things  in  general,  and  much  enjoyed  a  joke. 
Towards  the  English  he  was,  on  the  whole,  friendly, 
acknowledging  freely  the  benefits  the  Irrigation  Depart- 
ment had  conferred  upon  the  country,  and  the  improve- 
ment in  the  revenue  administration. 

But  the  sturdy  old  Moslem  could  not  get  over  the  fact 
that  we  were  Christians ;  he  had  been  brought  up  to 
regard  Christianity  as  a  religion  fit  only  for  Coptic  clerks 
and  Greek  moneylenders  and  other  low  persons.  I 
asked  him  what  would  happen  if  we  were  to  abandon 
Egypt,  and  he  admitted  frankly  that  it  would  be  a  great 
misfortune  for  people  like  himself.  'We  should  have 
the  Turks  back  again,'  he  said ;  and  he  did  not  like  the 
Turks,  and  gave  me  a  catalogue  of  their  iniquities. 
'But  they  were  Moslems,'  he  added. 

It  was  these  Turks,  or  Turco-Egyptians,  who  formed 
the  real  governing  element  in  Egypt  before  our  inter- 
vention, and,  to  some  extent,  they  do  so  still.  They 
constituted  the  military  caste,  the  higher  official  hier- 
archy, and  the  greater  landowners,  having  possession 
of  the  large  estates  which  the  Khedives  had  granted  to 
their  favourites  and  successful  ministers.  Egypt,  even 
under  the  dynasty  of  Mehemet  Ali,  was  a  subject 
province,  ruled  by  Turkish  conquerors.  Political  power 
and  social  importance  belonged  to  the  Osmanli,  includ- 
ing in  that  term  Circassians  and  Albanians ;  and  the 
Egyptians  were  regarded  as  a  subjugated,  inferior, 
population. 


230  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  contempt  with  which  the 
natives  of  all  ranks  were  treated  by  those  who  were,  or 
supposed  themselves  to  be,  of  the  Ottoman  race ;  and 
even  now,  though  they  have  lost  their  power,  they  retain 
their  insolence.  Before  1882  most  of  the  pashas  and 
provincial  governors  were  Turks,  and  the  administra- 
tive oppression  was  accentuated  by  the  fact  that  it  was 
carried  on  by  a  class  who  considered  themselves  the 
masters  of  the  country.  This  was  the  case  even  with 
the  Turco-Egyptians,  whose  ancestors  had  been  in  the 
country  for  a  century  or  more,  and  who  had  long  lost 
all  touch  with  Constantinople.  But  they  still  looked 
upon  the  Calif  as  their  political,  as  well  as  their  spiritual, 
head,  and  still  regarded  themselves  to  some  extent  as  a 
foreign  garrison. 

We  have  cut  the  claws  of  this  class  ;  but  they  are  still 
influential.  The  blood  of  the  masterful,  fighting  race 
tells  ;  and  the  Turk,  even  with  a  good  strain  of  Arab  or 
Egyptian  in  him,  retains  a  certain  energy  and  vigour 
of  character  which  give  him  the  ability  to  command. 
Twice  in  the  course  of  my  visits  to  great  estates  belong- 
ing to  European  land  companies  I  was  introduced  to 
native  intendants  or  managers,  who  seemed  to  be  men  of 
much  administrative  capacity  —  one  of  them  even  had 
English  subordinates,  to  whom  he  gave  orders ;  and  in 
each  instance  I  learned  that  they  were  of  Turkish  origin. 
It  is  these  Turco-Egyptians  who  still  hold  a  good  many 
of  the  places  in  which  initiative  and  willingness  to  accept 
responsibility  are  required.     From  this   stock  sprang 


GOVERNING    ELEMENTS  231 

Riaz  Pasha,  probably  the  ablest  statesman  of  modern 
Egypt,  except  Nubar,  that  subtle  and  versatile  Arme- 
nian. The  mudirs  and  mamurs  of  the  provinces,  and  the 
police  commandants,  are  largely  Turco-Egyptians,  some 
of  them  the  sons  or  grandsons  of  the  men  who  filled 
similar  offices  —  in  a  different  fashion  —  before  the 
Occupation.  They  are  better  so  engaged,  under  British 
inspection,  than  in  leading  the  life  of  pleasure  in  Cairo 
and  Alexandria,  with  much  more  doubtful  Western 
assistance,  or  sulking  on  their  estates,  dreaming  venge- 
fully  of  the  bad  old  days. 

The  Egyptian  Turk  is  not  too  fond  of  us.  With  the 
individual  Englishman  he  can  sometimes  get  on  pretty 
well,  for  between  the  Englishman  and  the  Turk  there 
are  points  in  common,  both  coming  of  a  vigorous  stock, 
that  has  Imperial  instincts  and  traditions.  But  for  the 
English  rule  the  Turk  has  small  liking,  even  though  he 
may  himself  be  doing  well  under  it.  I  heard  the  Occupa- 
tion bitterly  condemned  by  an  Albanian  officer  in  the 
Egyptian  army,  who  had  fought  bravely  under  Kitche- 
ner and  Grenfell,  and  bore  on  his  breast  a  whole  row  of 
medals  as  proofs  of  his  exploits.  Yet  this  man,  who  had 
served  faithfully  under  the  English,  and  had  been  re- 
warded and  honoured  for  doing  so,  wished  us  away,  and 
talked  of  Egypt  for  the  Egyptians  :  meaning  Egypt  for 
himself  and  his  kindred.  The  feeling  of  the  'Turk'  is 
intelligible.  He  knows  that  he  has  more  ruling  capacity 
than  anybody  in  the  country  except  ourselves.  If  we 
left,  he  believes  he  would  have  the  upper  hand  once 


232  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

more,  get  all  the  good  places  and  the  dignified  offices, 
and  make  himself  comfortable  in  the  ancient  high- 
handed fashion.  He  cannot  be  expected  to  cherish  any 
affection  for  an  administrative  system  which  puts  him 
on  the  same  political  level  as  his  former  serfs  and  sub- 
jects, and  makes  no  more  of  a  pasha  than  if  he  were  an 
Armenian  storekeeper.  So  he  grumbles  at  the  English, 
and  looks  vaguely  towards  Constantinople,  ignoring 
the  fact  that  the  little  finger  of  the  Sultan  and  the 
Young  Turks,  if  once  they  really  got  hold  of  the  country, 
would  be  thicker  than  the  loins  of  the  'Ingleezi,'  with 
no  particular  regard  shown  for  Osmanli  blood.  He 
probably  would  not  be  allowed  to  'boss'  the  country 
again  ;  but  he  thinks  he  would  and  could,  and  naturally 
resents  his  supersession. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
GOVERNMENT   BY  INSPECTION 

This  is  the  correct  description  of  the  system  which 
prevails  in  Egypt  under  the  British  occupation.  It  is 
government  by  inspection  and  authoritative  advice. 
We  leave  the  administration  so  far  as  may  be  in  native 
hands  ;  but  we  tell  the  native  administrators  what  they 
ought  to  do,  and  we  provide  European  supervisors  to 
see  that  they  do  it. 

At  headquarters  in  Cairo  this  control  is  fairly  close 
and  constant,  because  there  we  have  the  European 
adviser  in  daily  and  hourly  contact  with  the  chiefs  of 
the  departments  and  their  subordinates.  But  outside 
the  central  administration  there  is  no  such  division  or 
delegation  of  powers.  The  mudirs  are  supposed  to  be 
the  responsible  governors  of  the  provinces,  with  the 
entire  local  civil  and  police  hierarchy  under  their  com- 
mand. They  have  no  English  advisers,  but  there  are  a 
number  of  English  inspectors,  who  travel  about  the 
country,  visit  the  mudiryehs,  the  revenue  offices,  the 
police  stations,  the  prisons,  and  have  the  right  to  'call 
for  papers,'  to  inquire  into  alleged  abuses  or  miscarriages 
of  justice  or  failures  to  comply  with  the  requisition  of 
the  ministries,  and  generally  to  overhaul  the  proceedings 

233 


234  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

of  the  provincial  and  municipal  administration.  It  is 
the  inspectorate  which  prevents  the  local  machinery 
from  slipping  back  into  the  old  grooves,  and  enables  the 
British  Agent  and  his  staff  to  keep  in  touch  with  it  — 
more  or  less. 

The  more  or  less  depends  to  a  considerable  extent  on 
the  character  and  capacity  of  the  inspectors.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  Occupation  they  had  to  be  drawn  from 
such  sources  of  supply  as  were  available  on  the  spot. 
Some  were  military  men  ;  some  officials  who  had  served, 
in  one  capacity  or  another,  under  Ismail  or  the  Dual 
Control ;  some  private  individuals  who  had  been  long 
in  Egypt  and  had  become  acquainted  with  the  country 
and  the  natives.  The  Egyptian  civil  service,  it  must  be 
remembered,  had  been  a  good  deal  leavened  by  Euro- 
peans —  French,  Italians,  English  —  even  before  the 
Intervention.  Ismail,  though  he  preferred  the  French, 
had  some  liking  for  Englishmen  in  positions  of  respon- 
sibility. A  story  was  told  me  of  one  of  those  English 
employes  of  the  Khedive  by  his  son,  himself  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  present  Egyptian  Government.  The  Eng- 
lishman, a  retired  naval  officer,  had  an  important  ad- 
ministrative department  under  his  charge,  and  was 
liked  and  trusted  by  Ismail,  who  treated  him  with 
familiarity.  After  serving  for  some  years,  much  to  the 
advantage  of  the  public  interest,  he  thought  he  was  en- 
titled to  an  increase  of  his  moderate  salary,  and  made 
the  request  to  the  Khedive  by  word  of  mouth.  'How 
much  do  you  think  you  ought  to  have  ?'  asked  Ismail. 


GOVERNMENT    BY    INSPECTION       235 

The  Englishman  suggested  an  addition  of  four  hundred 
a  year  to  his  emoluments.  'And  what  is  the  entire 
budget  of  your  department  ?'  inquired  the  Khedive. 
'Over  £80,000,'  was  the  reply.  'My  dear  Captain,' 
said  his  Highness,  'you  have  £80,000  a  year  passing 
through  your  hands,  and  you  cannot  get  four  hundred 
for  yourself  without  coming  to  me  about  it?  What 
strange  people  you  English  are,  to  be  sure.' 

Some  of  the  rather  miscellaneous  collection  of  persons 
who  formed  the  official  hierarchy  at  the  outset  turned 
out  magnificently  and  did  admirable  work.  But  it  was 
largely  a  matter  of  chance,  and  there  were  some  failures. 
The  Anglo-Egyptian  Civil  Service  is  now  recruited  in 
the  regular  fashion  I  have  already  described  in  dealing 
with  the  Sudan.  Likely  candidates  are  nominated  by 
the  authorities  of  the  English  universities,  their  quali- 
fications are  considered  by  a  Board  of  Selection  com- 
posed of  high  officials,  and  the  best  of  them  are  chosen 
to  fill  the  annual  vacancies.  There  is  a  large  field  to 
choose  from,  for  the  Egyptian  service  offers  sufficient 
pay,  a  career,  a  pension,  a  fair  climate,  and  abundant 
holidays,  all  which  things  are  naturally  attractive  to  the 
youth  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  balancing  perhaps 
between  a  clerkship  in  Whitehall  and  the  teaching  of 
cricket  and  the  Latin  grammar  to  schoolboys.  Plenty 
of  candidates  present  themselves  ;  and  it  is  the  fault  of 
the  Board  of  Selection  if  they  do  not  get  young  men  of 
the  right  stamp,  or  as  near  it  as  our  ancient  universities 
can  supply. 


236  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

I  have  said  something  about  these  young  gentlemen 
as  they  develop  in  the  Sudan  under  military  tutelage. 
In  Egypt  their  functions  are  at  once  easier  and  more 
difficult.  They  are  freed  from  the  strain  of  dealing, 
often  unsupported  and  alone,  with  tribes  of  savages 
in  a  country,  conquered  but  hardly  as  yet  subjugated. 
On  the  other  hand  they  have  to  grapple  with  the  prob- 
lems of  an  older  and  more  complex  society,  and  to 
maintain  their  authority  with  civilised  Orientals, 
sometimes  of  exceeding  astuteness.  For  a  young  man 
of  five-  or  six-and-twenty,  who  a  year  or  two  before 
was  a  sort  of  grown-up  schoolboy,  to  tackle  a  wily 
old  mamur  or  sheikh,  learned  in  all  the  learning  of  the 
Egyptians,  is  no  easy  task.  And  in  Egypt  there  is 
scant  opportunity  of  giving  the  young  civilian  the 
prolonged  preliminary  training  which  is  imparted  to 
the  neophyte  in  India.  The  service  is  a  small  one,  and 
there  are  practically  no  subordinate  posts  to  be  filled  by 
Europeans.  The  junior  sub-inspector,  after  a  very 
few  months'  apprenticeship  under  a  senior  man,  has 
to  be  sent  on  his  rounds,  and  he  at  once  assumes  the 
responsibility  of  supervising  dignified  and  high-placed 
native  functionaries  double  his  own  age.  He  has  to 
conduct  his  correspondence  and  his  verbal  intercourse 
with  them  in  a  difficult  foreign  language,  and  under 
conditions  with  which  it  takes  years  of  close  observa- 
tion for  most  Europeans  to  grow  familiar.  His  duties 
are  delicate  as  well  as  responsible,  and  much  tact, 
temper,  judgment,  and  firmness  are  needed  to  perform 


GOVERNMENT   BY    INSPECTION       237 

them  properly.  For  the  inspector  is  not  the  direct 
official  chief  of  the  governors  and  district  magistrates, 
who  carry  on  the  local  administration,  and  have  the 
police  and  subordinate  officers  under  their  command, 
and  the  people  under  their  thumb. 

The  system  is  a  makeshift,  and  I  have  heard  it  criti- 
cised unfavourably  by  some  experienced  Europeans 
in  Egypt.  One  able  man,  who  knows  the  country 
thoroughly,  condemned  it  because  it  hampered  the 
mudirs  too  much  in  minor  matters,  derogated  from 
their  dignity,  and  made  it  difficult  to  get  the  right 
kind  of  native  gentleman  to  accept  the  office.  The 
mudir,  as  the  representative  of  the  Khedive,  and  the 
local  head  of  the  administration,  is  a  big  man  in  his 
province,  entitled  to  a  great  deal  of  the  consideration 
and  outward  respect  which  the  Oriental  loves.  But 
it  is  not  easy  for  him  to  conserve  his  status  when  a 
young  English  civilian  may  come  in  at  any  moment  to 
'sit  upon'  his  Excellency,  overhaul  his  accounts,  inves- 
tigate his  proceedings,  and  hear  complaints  against 
him  from  his  own  subordinates. 

My  friend  told  me  that  one  mudir  complained  to 
him  especially  of  the  interference  of  the  inspectors  in 
trivial  matters ;  he  could  not,  he  said,  dock  a  clerk  of 
two  days'  pay  for  unpunctuality  without  being  taken 
to  task  for  it  by  the  inspector.  How,  he  asked,  could 
he  maintain  his  authority  and  enforce  discipline  in 
these  circumstances  ? 

Nor  is  this  minute  inspection  always  effective,  for 


238  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

the  local  officials  can  usually  baffle  the  inspector,  if 
they  choose,  and  render  his  inquiries  to  a  large  extent 
nugatory.  What,  indeed,  can  the  latter  do,  especially 
if  he  is  young,  not  altogether  familiar  with  the  col- 
loquial Arabic,  and  unversed  in  the  ways  of  the  people  ? 
Let  us  say  that  an  alleged  case  of  police  corruption, 
or  an  unpunished  crime,  has  been  brought  to  the  notice 
of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior.  An  inspector  is  ordered 
from  Cairo  to  investigate  and  report,  and  he  informs 
the  mudir  that  on  such  and  such  a  day  he  will  visit 
that  potentate's  seat  of  government  and  go  into  the 
matter.  'O,  Hamed  Mustapha,'  says  the  mudir  to 
his  confidential  assistant,  'behold  the  Ingleez  Bey, 
Jon-ess  mister,  cometh  to  make  a  report.  Let  us  see 
to  it,  my  brother,  that  he  learneth  those  things  which 
it  is  fitting  for  him  to  know.' 

In  due  course  Jones,  B.A.,  appears,  and  is  received 
with  all  suitable  respect.  The  mudir  is  delighted  to 
see  him ;  very  glad  indeed  that  the  Effendim  at  Cairo 
are  inquiring  into  that  matter  which  has  been  the  cause 
of  so  much  anxious  thought  to  himself  and  his  vigilant 
staff;  most  desirous  to  assist  the  inspector  in  his  la- 
bours —  in  fact,  has  had  all  the  papers  prepared  to 
save  him  trouble.  The  inspector  glances  through  a 
formidable  bundle  of  documents,  and  makes  what  he 
can  of  them  with  the  assistance  of  his  translator.  He 
questions  the  mudir,  who  deeply  deplores  the  unfortu- 
nate incident  which  has  occurred.  He  himself  has 
spent  sedulous  days  and  nights  over  it,  and  after  much 


GOVERNMENT    BY    INSPECTION       239 

cogitation  has  framed,  with  the  assistance  of  Allah,  a 
theory  on  the  subject.  Would  the  inspector  deign  to 
hear  it  ?  The  inspector  listens  to  the  explanation, 
which  may  perhaps  strike  him  as  rather  thin.  But 
when  he  comes  to  examine  the  other  witnesses,  the 
mamurs,  the  secretaries,  the  magistrates,  the  police, 
and  the  village  headmen,  he  finds  that  they  all  support 
the  mudir's  version  of  the  case  with  singular  uni- 
formity. He  may  have  his  doubts ;  but  what  can  he 
do  ?  The  officials  are  in  daily  contact  with  the  local 
chief,  they  are  dependent  upon  him  for  all  sorts  of 
small  favours,  and  they  have  good  cause  for  not  wish- 
ing to  incur  his  displeasure.  The  inspector  is  a 
stranger ;  he  is  not  in  touch  with  them,  and  they  have 
no  reason  to  offend  their  magnate  for  the  sake  of  a 
person  who  will  presently  go  away  and  forget  them. 
Jones  must  be  a  man  of  unusual  penetration  if  he  is 
able  to  get  behind  the  story  which  has  been  prepared 
for  him,  or  to  compile  a  report  which  tells  more  of  the 
truth  than  it  is  considered  desirable  for  him  to  ascer- 
tain. 

Another  Anglo-Egyptian  of  great  experience,  with 
whom  I  conversed  on  this  subject,  was  so  much  im- 
pressed by  the  difficulties  of  government  by  inspec- 
tion that  he  advocated  its  abolition  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  direct  British  responsibility.  He  thought 
that  an  English  mudir  should  be  appointed  in  every 
Egyptian  province,  as  is  the  case  in  the  Sudan ;  or, 
if  that   is   not  done,   that   at   least  the   native   mudir 


240  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

should  be  provided  with  an  English  adviser,  according 
to  the  precedent  adopted  at  the  central  ministries. 
His  view  is  that  the  tradition  of  corruption  and  mal- 
administration has  not  yet  been  eradicated,  and  will 
not  be  for  generations  to  come ;  and,  that  being  so, 
it  is  hopeless  to  expect  good  government  in  Egyptian 
hands.  But  then  he  is  one  of  those  Englishmen  who 
have  the  profoundest  distrust  of  all  'native'  honesty 
and  competence ;  and  he  gave  me  lurid  tales  of  the 
manner  in  which  bribery  is  still  attempted,  even  of 
European  officials,  and  of  the  rooted  disbelief  in  ad- 
ministrative integrity. 

For  my  part,  I  do  not  agree  with  him.  I  know  that 
jobbery  and  mismanagement  are  not  confined  to  the 
East,  and  examples  of  it  have  been  met  with  as  far 
removed  from  the  Nile  as  Poplar  and  St.  Louis.  If 
minor  officials  in  the  Egyptian  irrigation  service  some- 
times accept  douceurs  and  connive  at  evasions  of  the 
law,  so  also  do  minor  officials  in  English  and  American 
municipalities.  The  old  Egyptian  bureaucracy  was  a 
bad  one,  not  because  the  men  in  it  were  Orientals, 
but  because  they  were  Orientals  inadequately  con- 
trolled, irregularly  paid,  and  employed  by  a  venal  and 
capricious  despotism.  Pay  the  Oriental  properly, 
keep  him  under  strict  supervision,  and  make  it  his 
interest  to  be  honest,  and  I  dare  say  he  will  be  about  as 
upright  as  most  other  imperfectly  educated  men  with 
no  exalted  ideal  of  public  duty,  which,  after  all,  in  most 
countries  is  only  the  possession  of  the  few. 


GOVERNMENT    BY    INSPECTION       241 

At  any  rate  the  expedient  of  enlarging  direct  British 
action  is  not  likely  to  be  adopted.  The  tendency  is 
the  other  way.  Instead  of  still  further  reducing  the 
powers  and  responsibilities  of  the  mudirs  and  their 
councils,  it  is  probable  that  they  will  be  extended.  Lord 
Cromer  was  on  the  whole  satisfied  with  the  progress 
made  by  these  officials  during  the  closing  years  of  his 
tenure  of  office.  Some  of  them  still  exhibit  too  much 
of  the  slackness  and  laxity  of  the  old  regime ;  but  they 
are  assimilating  the  new  methods,  and  some  of  the 
younger  governors  are  far  more  capable  and  efficient 
than  their  predecessors.  The  time  has  not  yet  come 
for  withdrawing  such  check  as  is  enforced  by  the  exist- 
ence of  the  inspectorate ;  but  I  think  that  in  the 
future  the  numbers  of  the  inspectors  will  be  diminished 
and  their  activity  curtailed,  and  every  effort  made  to 
render  the  mudir  really  responsible  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  his  province  and  to  judge  him  by  the  results. 
If  he  needs  assistance  it  may  be  given  by  providing 
him  with  a  strong  provincial  council,  formed  of  the 
leading  men  of  his  district.  Lord  Cromer's  later 
policy  was  to  place  in  native  hands  all  the  functions 
which  natives  could  be  trusted  to  perform,  and  the 
policy  is  likely  to  be  carried  farther  under  Lord 
Kitchener.  That  indeed  is  the  only  means  by  which 
Egypt  can  be  prepared  for  the  self-government  which 
it  is  the  ultimate  object  of  the  Occupation  to  confer 
upon  her. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

HALTING  JUSTICE 

The  most  unsatisfactory  feature  in  the  condition  of 
modern  Egypt  is  the  administration  of  criminal  justice. 
The  opponents  of  the  British  Occupation  point  exult- 
ingly  to  the  fact  that  in  a  prosperous  and  improving 
country,  with  a  population,  on  the  whole,  docile,  sub- 
missive, and  peaceable,  life  and  property  are  less 
secure  than  they  used  to  be  in  some  provinces  of  Euro- 
pean Turkey.  This  insecurity  is  most  noticeable  in 
the  Delta,  which  ought  to  be,  one  would  think,  a  region 
very  easily  policed,  for  it  is  made  up  of  flat  fields  and 
little  open  villages,  with  no  mountains,  swamps,  or 
forests  in  which  evil-doers  can  take  refuge ;  and, 
though  there  are  a  certain  number  of  predatory  Bed- 
ouins about,  the  great  majority  of  the  villagers  are 
quiet,  hardworking  peasants.  Yet  in  the  Behera 
province,  and  other  parts  of  the  Delta,  crimes  of  vio- 
lence are  far  too  numerous.  Arson,  robbery,  and 
murder  decrease  very  little,  and  assaults  upon  women, 
homicidal  attacks,  house-breaking,  forgery,  cattle- 
poisoning,  and  other  offences  tend  to  increase ;  and 
some  old  residents  have  assured  me  that  in  this  respect 
the  state  of  the  country  is  no  better  than  it  was  under 
Ismail  and  Said. 

242 


HALTING   JUSTICE  243 

Englishmen  are  not  often  the  victims  of  personal 
violence,  partly  because  there  are  very  few  of  them  in 
the  small  towns  and  villages,  partly  because  those  who 
are  there  know  how  to  protect  themselves,  and  it  is 
not  deemed  safe  to  meddle  with  them.  Europeans  of 
some  other  nationalities  do  not  share  this  immunity ; 
Greeks  and  Italians  have  been  murdered  or  robbed, 
even  in  the  suburbs  of  Alexandria. 

A  great  proportion  of  the  crimes  reported  (consider- 
ably more  than  half)  go  unpunished,  and  everybody 
knows  that  many  serious  offences  are  committed  in 
the  villages  which  are  never  reported  at  all ;  and 
again  many  notorious  criminals  when  brought  to  trial 
before  the  native  courts  are  acquitted.  In  the  last  six 
months  of  191 1,  out  of  eighty  convictions  in  cases  sent 
up  to  the  Courts  of  Assize  by  the  committing  magis- 
trates, for  wilful  murder  with  premeditation,  only  three 
sentences  of  death  were  pronounced.  Human  life  is 
held  strangely  cheap,  and  homicide  is  often  the  result 
of  incidents  of  the  most  trivial  character.  'A  man 
who  expostulated  with  his  neighbour  for  crossing  the 
end  of  his  garden  was  murdered  the  same  afternoon 
for  no  other  or  better  reason.'1  'Comparatively  few 
murders  are  committed  or  attempted  for  purposes  of 
robbery,  and  the  majority  may  be  ascribed  to  revenge, 
feuds,  questions  of  women,  or  sudden  quarrels  arising 
from  motives  of  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  exag- 

1  Lord  Kitchener,  Reports  on  Egypt  and  the  Sudan,  191 1  and  1912,  pp.  31 
and  35. 


244  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

gerate  the  futility.  Thus  in  Assiut  a  woman  is  murdered 
for  refusing  to  give  a  glass  of  water,  a  man  for  taking 
a  handful  of  flour.  In  Behera  a  man  is  killed  for 
allowing  his  sheep  to  eat  in  a  neighbour's  clover ;  in 
Gharbia  another  for  fishing  in  a  drain ;  in  Girga  a 
third  because  his  son  stole  a  date,  and  a  girl  is  mur- 
dered for  purloining  a  head  of  maize.'  *  In  the  great 
cities  there  has  been  a  steady  growth  of  crime,  and  in 
Cairo,  with  its  large  sprinkling  of  cosmopolitan  rascal- 
dom, there  were  454  murders  and  other  grave  offences 
in  191 2  as  compared  with  344  in  1910.  Society  in 
Egypt,  in  town  and  country  alike,  is  still  somewhat 
imperfectly  protected  against  evil-doers. 

This  is  partly  due  to  the  inadequate  numbers  of  the 
police  force.  There  are  only  8290  policemen  with  434 
officers  for  the  whole  of  Egypt;  and  of  the  officers 
only  62  are  English.  These  sixty-two  Englishmen 
have  to  keep  order  and  suppress  crime  among  twelve 
millions  of  people,  scattered  in  thousands  of  villages 
about  the  Delta,  and  stringed  out  along  the  course  of 
the  Nile,  with  the  desert  handy  on  either  side  for  fugi- 
tives and  marauders,  or  packed  into  the  bazaars  and 
swarming  alleys  of  the  cities.  No  wonder  they  find 
they  have  rather  too  much  on  their  hands.  Lord 
Kitchener  is  endeavouring  to  improve  matters  in  the 
rural  districts  by  organizing  the  ghaffirs  or  village 
watchmen  into  a  sort  of  local  gendarmerie,  giving  them 

1  Lord  Kitchener,  Reports  on  Egypt  and  the  Sudan,  191 1  and  191 2,  pp.  31 
and  35. 


Fhoto  by  Ouinch,  (  airo. 


The  Khedive. 


HALTING   JUSTICE  245 

regular  police  training,  and  some  military  drill  and 
instruction  in  the  use  of  arms.  There  are  over  forty 
thousand  of  these  ghaffirs,  under  their  own  special 
officers  and  the  general  authority  of  the  omdehs,  or 
village  headmen,  and  a  good  deal  is  expected  from 
their  efforts  under  the  new  system. 

To  the  ordinary  Nile  tourist  nothing  of  all  this  is 
visible.  But  some  hints  of  it  will  speedily  be  brought 
before  any  visitor  who  spends  a  short  time  in  the 
Delta  towns  and  villages.  I  went  into  the  living-room 
of  an  English  bank  manager,  and  observed  that  he 
had  a  small  armoury  of  firearms,  rifles,  and  Mauser 
pistols,  as  well  as  sporting  guns.  I  said  I  did  not  know 
there  was  any  big  game  in  that  part  of  the  country. 
He  smiled,  and  said  that  one  might  possibly  need  a 
weapon,  in  certain  eventualities,  for  other  purposes 
than  that  of  sport.  He  added  that  in  the  town  in 
which  his  branch  was  situated  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  floating  ruffianism  and  loose  rowdyism,  imperfectly 
controlled  by  the  police,  who  were  regarded  with  con- 
tempt and  inspired  no  terror.  One  could  never  tell, 
he  observed,  whether  some  incident  might  not  pro- 
duce an  outbreak  of  this  disorderly  element,  and  in 
that  case  it  would  be  as  well  to  be  able  to  defend 
oneself. 

It  is  a  sure  sign  of  insufficient  police  protection  when 
private  individuals  take  to  carrying  arms,  as  they  do 
in  the  city  of  Paris  and  certain  portions  of  the  United 
States  of  America.     My  friend  the  bank  manager  told 


246  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

me  that  many  officials  and  other  residents  in  the  rural 
districts  thought  it  advisable  to  have  a  weapon  handy. 
He  said  that  he  had  met  the  omdeh  of  the  neighbour- 
ing village  and  found  him  going  his  rounds  girt  with  a 
belt  that  supported  a  business-like  looking  revolver. 
Asked  why  this  defensive  apparatus  was  necessary, 
the  headman  replied  that  he  often  had  to  carry  con- 
siderable sums  of  money  with  him,  and  was  always 
liable  to  be  attacked  by  Arab  footpads  or  village 
ruffians.  This  was  in  the  heart  of  one  of  the  richest 
and  most  populous  agricultural  districts  in  the  world. 
It  is  not  increasing  poverty  which  has  led  to  increasing 
crime  here. 

The  causes  are  of  another  kind.  The  police,  be- 
sides being  weak  in  numbers,  work  under  many  dis- 
advantages. They  were  organised  as  a  quasi-military 
force,  and  in  the  early  years  of  the  Occupation  they 
did  good  service  under  direct  English  command.  There 
was  much  open  defiance  of  authority,  the  dregs  of  the 
Arabist  rebellion  were  still  simmering,  and  there  was 
soldiers'  work  to  do.  Everybody  in  Egypt  knows 
how  one  iron-handed  Briton  dealt  with  disaffection 
and  disorder  in  a  perturbed  district.  'Will  you  under- 
take this  job  ?'  said  his  superior.  'Yes,  if  you  will 
give  me  a  free  hand.'  'You  can  have  as  many  men,' 
said  the  Chief,  'and,  within  reason,  as  much  money 
as  you  want;  and  I  shall  ask  no  questions.  But  you 
have  got  to  keep  this  province  quiet.  If  you  succeed 
—  well.     If  you  fail,  there  is  an  end  to  your  career.' 


HALTING   JUSTICE  247 

There  was  no  failure ;  and  in  a  couple  of  years  that 
province  showed  as  clean  a  crime-sheet  as  Bedfordshire. 
To-day  brigandage  and  robbery  are  again  rife  there. 
The  gendarmerie  has  been  turned  to  civil  police  duties 
under  chiefs  who  are  not,  as  a  rule,  police  experts. 
The  mudir,  nominally  responsible  for  the  security  of 
the  province,  has  no  control  over  the  parquet ;  and 
his  authority  is  liable  to  be  weakened  by  the  inter- 
ference of  the  English  inspector,  who  may  know  noth- 
ing whatever  about  police  work,  and  sometimes  knows 
very  little  about  the  people  and  the  district.  The 
police,  too,  are  largely  independent  of  the  civil  adminis- 
tration. Neither  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  nor  the 
local  authorities  have  the  right  to  see  a  proces  verbal 
after  it  has  come  into  the  hands  of  the  parquet.  This 
separation  of  powers  sounds  rather  well  theoretically ; 
but  in  practice,  where  the  police  are  often  timid  and 
sometimes  corrupt,  it  works  badly  and  allows  many 
criminals  to  be  at  large  who  ought  to  be  in  gaol. 

Another  difficulty  is  that  the  Egyptian  habitual 
criminal  does  not  mind  going  to  prison,  now  that  he 
is  no  longer  flogged  when  he  gets  there.  On  the 
contrary,  he  is  well  fed,  well  lodged,  properly  clothed, 
and  generally  provided,  with  more  creature  comforts, 
with  more  food,  warmth,  light,  ventilation,  than  he  is 
accustomed  to  enjoy  when  at  large.  'It  certainly 
looks,'  says  the  Judicial  Adviser  to  the  Khedivial 
Government  in  a  recent  Report,  'as  if  our  very  hygienic 
and  up-to-date  Egyptian  prisons  hold  few  terrors  for 


248  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

the  criminal  classes  of  this  country.  The  problem  is 
even  more  difficult  here  than  in  Europe,  where  a 
certain  moral  stigma  attaches  to  imprisonment  which 
is  practically  non-existent  here.  We  can  only  hope 
that,  with  the  advance  of  education  and  other  civilis- 
ing influences,  the  disgrace  in  question  may,  in  time, 
be  more  keenly  felt  and  imprisonment  become  more 
deterrent  than  it  evidently  is  at  present.'  It  is  cer- 
tainly not  easy  to  make  prison  strongly  'deterrent' 
to  a  person  who  regards  a  short  sojourn  in  gaol  as  an 
agreeable  and  inexpensive  rest-cure. 

More  than  all  this  is  the  fact  that  the  Egyptian  peas- 
antry do  not  understand  the  modern  method  of  ad- 
ministering criminal  justice,  and  do  not  co-operate 
with  it.  We  have  introduced  the  principle  of  English 
law  which  requires  that  a  person,  even  if  known  to  be 
guilty,  shall  not  be  punished  unless  his  guilt  can  be 
proved  in  open  court  by  the  evidence  of  witnesses. 
This  is  alien  to  the  Eastern  temperament,  and  so  is 
that  tenderness  for  abstract  justice  which  would  rather 
see  six  criminals  escape  than  condemn  one  innocent 
man.  When  a  crime  is  committed  in  an  Egyptian 
village  the  circumstances  are,  as  a  rule,  matter  of  public 
notoriety.  Everybody  knows  who  the  offender  was ; 
there  is  probably  not  a  human  being  in  the  entire  pre- 
cincts who  could  not  denounce  the  author,  account  for 
his  motives,  and  describe  his  crime  off-hand.  But  be- 
fore that  criminal  can  be  convicted  he  must  be  tried 
in  open  court,  and  his  guilt  proved  by  the  testimony 


HALTING    JUSTICE  249 

of  witnesses.  Now  the  witnesses  will  not  appear  if 
they  can  help  it,  and  if  they  are  summoned  they  are 
not  anxious  to  give  evidence  against  the  prisoner ; 
for  there  is  no  certainty  in  their  minds  that  he  will  be 
condemned,  and  if  he  is  acquitted  they  know  very 
well  that  he  will  have  a  score  to  settle  with  those  who 
have  endeavoured  ineffectually  to  get  him  punished. 
The  reluctant  witness  may  be  a  peaceable  farmer,  the 
accused  a  more  or  less  violent  ruffian  who  will  not 
scruple  to  take  his  revenge.  The  villager  does  not  see 
why  he  should  incur  these  risks  and  inconvenience  to 
oblige  the  State,  which  will  not  trouble  to  protect  him 
when  the  trial  is  over.  Besides,  it  is  no  affair  of  his 
to  bring  criminals  to  justice.  The  Effendim  should 
perform  that  duty  without  the  assistance  of  private 
individuals.  Thus  it  is  that  witnesses  cannot  be 
procured,  even  in  flagrant  and  notorious  cases  of 
murder,  and  that  offenders,  caught  almost  red-handed, 
escape  punishment. 

The  Ministry  of  the  Interior  makes  some  attempt  to 
deal  with  this  state  of  things  by  imposing  an  extra 
police  tax,  according  to  the  Indian  precedent,  on  a 
village  in  which  there  is  much  unpunished  crime.  This, 
it  is  assumed,  will  give  the  whole  population  an  interest 
in  waging  war  against  malefactors  and  overcome  the 
reluctance  to  give  evidence.  It  does  not  always  work 
that  way.  In  an  Arab  village,  near,  a  house  where  I 
was  staying  in  the  Delta,  two  travelling  hawkers  had 
recently    been    robbed    and    murdered.     The    omdeh, 


250  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

himself  one  of  the  Arab  villagers,  was  called  upon  to 
produce  the  murderers,  whose  identity  was  known  to 
every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  place.  He  pro- 
fessed his  inability  to  do  so,  and  thereupon  was  ordered 
to  enrol  half  a  dozen  extra  watchmen,  and  pay  them 
the  regulation  number  of  piastres  out  of  the  village 
funds.  The  omdeh  induced  six  of  his  own  friends  and 
associates  to  accept  these  offices,  with  an  understand- 
ing that  on  receiving  their  salaries  they  should  give 
them  back  to  him  to  be  redistributed  among  the  en- 
lightened ratepayers.  Thus  the  administrative  pres- 
sure was  not  felt,  and  the  penalty  inflicted  on  the 
peasant  population  was  rendered  nugatory. 

A  rather  curious  appendix  to  the  story  was  the 
attitude  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  small  outlying  hamlet 
attached  to  the  village.  These  people  were  not  Arabs, 
but  Egyptian  fellahin.  They  protested  that  they  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  murder,  which  had  been  ar- 
ranged by  the  Arabs,  possibly  with  the  connivance  of 
their  omdeh  and  the  sheikhs,  who,  at  any  rate, 
had  made  themselves  accessories  after  the  fact.  The 
hamlet  dwellers  did  not  feel  called  upon  to  denounce 
these  wrongdoers  to  the  authorities,  but  they  did  not 
see  why  they  should  suffer  for  their  misdeeds,  and  they 
stoutly  refused  to  recognize  the  increased  police-tax 
or  contribute  to  it  in  any  way. 

In  these  matters  Egypt  is  suffering,  like  other  Orien- 
tal countries  just  now,  through  the  transition  from  the 
old  ways  to  the  new.     We  have  endeavoured  to  adapt 


HALTING   JUSTICE  251 

the  procedure  and  the  principles  of  Western  law  among 
a  people  who  have  not  yet  assimilated  its  spirit.  Under 
the  ancient  dispensation  criminal  justice  was  rough 
and  ferocious.  Still,  it  did  manage  to  keep  down 
violent  crime  by  the  effectual  method  of  striking  terror. 
The  law  might  not  be  loved,  but  it  could  make  itself 
felt  in  a  forcible  fashion  when  the  occasion  arose. 

If  a  murder  was  reported  to  the  Pasha,  and  he  con- 
sidered it  advisable,  or  was  requested  from  Cairo, 
to  make  an  example,  he  acted  without  undue  formality. 
He  came  down  to  the  village,  and  called  upon  the  omdeh 
to  produce  the  murderer  forthwith.  The  headman, 
probably  knowing  all  about  the  crime,  delivered  up 
the  criminal  if  he  could,  and  the  Pasha  promptly  hanged 
him ;  or,  if  the  right  man  was  not  available,  the  omdeh 
surrendered  somebody  else  to  the  gallows.  If  the 
omdeh  could  not  find  anybody  within  a  reasonable 
time,  the  Pasha  very  likely  hanged  him,  caused  several 
of  the  principal  residents  to  'eat  stick,'  ordered  his 
zaptiehs  to  seize  some  portable  property  or  cattle  as 
a  fine  on  the  community  at  large,  and  went  away. 

This  very  arbitrary  conduct  had  at  any  rate  the 
effect  of  reminding  the  villagers,  with  dramatic  em- 
phasis, that  murder  was  a  proceeding  which  might 
involve  unpleasant  consequences  for  somebody,  or 
perhaps  everybody;  and  that  the  commission  of  mur- 
der was,  therefore,  an  indulgence  which,  in  the  general 
interest,  should  be  kept  within  due  limits.  It  was 
not  ideal  justice,  and  no  trouble  was  taken  to  obtain 


252  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

conclusive  evidence  of  guilt.  The  innocent  often 
suffered,  but  the  guilty  did  not  always  escape ;  and 
it  was  not  left  to  the  private  individual  to  assist  the 
law  as  a  witness  at  his  own  personal  inconvenience  and 
risk. 

The  old  system  cannot  be  commended ;  but  it  was 
probably  not  a  whit  more  distasteful  to  the  people 
than  the  one  we  have  put  in  its  place.  We  cannot,  of 
course,  go  back  to  the  traditional  Oriental  method. 
We  can  only  hope  that  the  blessings  of  the  Western 
procedure  will  gradually  gain  comprehension  and 
sympathy.  And  in  the  meanwhile  we  must  take  pains 
to  render  the  administration  of  criminal  justice  as 
effective  as  it  can  be  made  under  the  conditions,  and 
a  great  deal  more  effective  than  it  is  at  present. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
SOME  RECENT  REFORMS 

In  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  said  something  of 
the  defects  which  mar  our  administrative  record,  some- 
thing of  the  difficulties  which  still  remain  to  be  sur- 
mounted. Yet,  taken  as  a  whole,  the  record  is  one  to 
which  we  are  entitled  to  turn  with  satisfaction.  In  the 
recent  history  of  our  race  there  is  no  chapter  more 
creditable  than  this  of  our  relations  with  the  peoples  of 
the  Nile  basin  during  the  past  thirty  years.  That 
space  of  time,  brief  enough  in  the  life  of  nations,  al- 
most covers  our  occupation  of  Egypt  and  our  control 
of  its  affairs.  And  within  it  a  small  number  of  British 
statesmen,  soldiers,  civil  officials,  engineers,  and  edu- 
cationalists have  performed  a  work  of  organization 
and  reconstruction  which  cannot  easily  be  overpraised. 
Nothing  that  England  has  done  in  Asia,  and  Germany 
or  France  in  Africa,  has  been  so  swift,  so  certain,  so 
unquestionably  beneficial  to  the  world  at  large  and  to 
the  populations  immediately  concerned. 

At' the  opening  of  the  eighties  of  the  last  century 
Egypt  lay,  as  it  were,  waterlogged  and  half-derelict, 
rolling  heavily  across  the  track  of  international  politics. 
In  the  later  years  of  Ismail  it  had  become  a  bad  example 

253 


254  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

of  Oriental  misgovernment,  rendered  worse  by  a  veneer 
of  Western  extravagance  and  vulgarity.  Ismail's 
palaces  and  railways  and  boulevards  and  theatres 
and  steam-yachts,  his  caravanserai  of  wives  and  concu- 
bines, and  the  brigades  and  batteries  he  quartered  on 
the  Sudan,  or  threw  away  in  Abyssinia  —  all  these  had 
to  be  paid  for  by  millions  of  ill-fed,  overworked,  and 
ruthlessly  plundered  peasants.  It  was  the  fellah, 
grubbing  in  the  Nile  mud,  and  dabbling  in  the  wasted 
and  unbridled  Nile  flood,  who  in  the  last  resort  bore 
the  burden  alike  of  Turkish  pashadom  and  cosmopoli- 
tan usury.  These  kept  their  fangs  buried  fast  in  the 
luckless  country,  even  when  Ismail  was  cleared  out, 
not  because  he  had  spoiled  the  Egyptians,  but  because 
the  bondholders  were  afraid  he  might  begin  to  spoil 
them.  The  rich  lands  of  the  Delta  and  the  river  banks, 
which  once  fed  the  populace  of  Rome  with  corn,  and 
are  now  feeding  the  mills  of  Lancashire  with  cotton, 
could  barely  find  a  living  for  their  own  inhabitants. 
The  concessionnaire,  and  the  foreign  middleman, 
waxed  fat,  under  the  shelter  of  the  international  con- 
ventions and  jurisdictions  which  the  Powers  had  ex- 
torted from  the  weakness  of  the  Sultanate  and  the 
insolvency  of  the  Khediviate.  Military  insubordina- 
tion had  followed  social  disruption,  and  three  very  ordi- 
nary colonels  might  have  overthrown  the  government, 
and  restored  the  regime  of  the  Mamelukes,  if  England, 
as  usual  in  'a  fit  of  absence  of  mind,'  had  not  muddled 
into  armed  intervention  at  the  critical  moment. 


SOME    RECENT    REFORMS  255 

It  was  one  of  our  lucky  blunders.  It  saved  Egypt 
from  France,  from  the  Turks,  to  some  extent  even 
from  the  bourses ;  it  placed  us  securely  astride  the 
short  route  to  India  ;  it  eventually  created  for  us  a  new 
empire  in  the  Sudan,  and  rescued  that  great  area  from 
anarchy  and  barbarism ;  it  initiated  the  regeneration 
of  the  Nile  valley,  financial,  economic,  political,  so 
that  now,  while  those  who  were  young  when  the  process 
began  are  not  yet  old,  the  country  is  more  prosperous, 
more  stable,  more  progressive,  more  honestly  governed 
than  it  has  been  for  many  centuries.  In  the  last  few 
years,  lit  by  the  fires  that  have  flared  from  continent  to 
continent,  throbbing  to  the  march  of  armies  and  the 
movement  of  world-diplomacy,  we  have  left  our  men 
to  do  their  work  on  the  Nile  almost  unnoticed.  But 
the  work  has  gone  on,  quietly  and  steadily,  though  with 
many  checks  and  set-backs ;  and  if  we  take  stock  of  it 
to-day  we  see  that  the  process  of  reform  is  maintained, 
and  that  with  every  year  that  passes  we  are  doing 
something  to  redeem  the  promise  with  which  we 
entered  upon  military  occupation  of  the  Khedivial 
dominions.  We  are  preparing  the  Egyptian  people 
for  self-government  and  self-realisation ;  though  not 
in  our  time,  or  for,  long  afterwards,  will  the  goal  be 
reached. 

Not  long  ago,  among  the  papers  'presented  to  both 
Houses  of  Parliament  by  command  of  His  Majesty,' 
was  one  headed  'Egypt,  No.  3  (191 3),'  which  I  have  no 
doubt   was   consigned,   for   the   most   part   unread,   to 


256  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

numerous  legislative  and  editorial  waste-paper  baskets. 
Such  is  the  fate  of  the  greater  part  of  that  invaluable 
material  for  the  writing  of  history  which  His  Majesty's 
Stationery  Office  discharges  with  wasteful  profusion 
upon  an  unregarding  world.  But  'Egypt,  No.  3 
(191 3),'  was  worth  a  glance  if  only  for  its  authorship. 
It  was  a  'Despatch  from  His  Majesty's  Agent  and 
Consul-General  at  Cairo'  —  that  is  to  say,  from  the 
leader  and  administrator  who  has  written  his  name  so 
deeply,  not  only  upon  the  sands  of  North-East  Africa, 
but  also  upon  the  soil  of  Europe  and  Asia.  Fourteen 
years  ago  Lord  Kitchener  was  called  away  from  the 
Nile  to  play  his  part  on  the  greater  stage  of  affairs, 
to  break  down  the  Boer  resistance  in  South  Africa,  and 
then  to  command  the  armies  of  India.  But  now, 
after  a  long  absence,  he  is  back  in  Egypt,  not  as  the 
strategist  and  war-lord,  but  as  the  supervisor  of  eco- 
nomic and  political  reforms ;  and  in  the  two  concise 
Annual  Reports,  in  which  he  gives  an  account  of  his 
stewardship,  we  can  discover  how  far  Egypt  has  gone 
on  the  road  to  stable  nationhood  since  Major  Kitchener, 
R.E.,  was  commanding  the  Egyptian  cavalry  when 
Wolseley  dragged  his  slow  column  up  the  Nile  nine- 
and-twenty  years  ago. 

Egypt,  when  Lord  Kitchener  took  over  the  British 
Agency  at  Cairo  in  July  191 1,  was  under  a  political 
cloud.  The  three  previous  years  had  been  marked  by  a 
good  deal  of  economic  depression,  the  natural  and  in- 
evitable result  of  the  excessive  inflation  of  the  preceding 


SOME    RECENT   REFORMS  257 

period  which  culminated  in  the  collapse  of  the  great 
speculative  boom  of  1907.  The  public  revenue  was 
increasing  and  the  general  resources  of  the  country 
were  untouched  ;  but  the  banking  and  business  com- 
munity was  in  disorder,  and  there  were  numerous 
failures.  This  disturbance  of  the  financial  atmosphere 
may  have  helped  to  render  Egypt  more  easily  respon- 
sive to  that  wave  of  unrest  which  passed  over  the 
Mohammedan  world  after  1908.  The  operations  of 
the  Young  Turk  Committee  affected  all  Islamic  coun- 
tries more  or  less,  and  in  Cairo  the  Committee  had  its 
agents  in  close  touch  with  the  groups  of  semi-educated 
young  native  agitators  who  were  equally  opposed  to  the 
Khediviate,  as  the  representative  of  Turkish  autocracy, 
and  the  British  control,  as  the  embodiment  of  alien 
and  Christian  domination.  Sir  Eldon  Gorst's  liberal 
and  conciliatory  attitude,  and  his  well-meant  efforts 
to  extend  the  sphere  of  local  self-government,  had  been 
misinterpreted,  as  he  himself  mournfully  acknowledged, 
into  'an  attempt  to  pacify  the  Nationalist  agitation 
by  ill-timed  concessions  and  an  intentional  diminu- 
tion of  British  authority.'  In  February  1910,  Boutros 
Pasha,  the  Coptic  Prime  Minister,  was  murdered  by 
Wardani,  a  young  Nationalist,  and  the  trial  of  the 
murderer  gave  occasion  for  many  demonstrations  of 
Mussulman  fanaticism  and  anti-English  feeling.  It 
was  discovered  that  a  seditious  society,  in  intimate 
relations  with  the  Young  Turk  Committee,  was  in 
existence  in  Cairo.     The  connection  of  these  agitators 


258  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

with  the  abortive  plot  to  murder  the  Khedive,  the 
Premier,  and  Lord  Kitchener  himself,  in  July  191 2, 
was  not  open  to  much  doubt. 

The  appointment  of  Lord  Kitchener  at  this  juncture 
was  an  exceedingly  wise  step.  Sir  Eldon  Gorst  was  an 
accomplished  and  high-minded  administrator  and  an 
able  financier.  But  his  amiable  temperament,  his 
unobtrusive  manner,  his  rooted  objection  to  all  methods 
that  bore  even  the  appearance  of  harshness,  his  dislike 
for  the  assertion,  or  even  the  show,  of  autocratic  au- 
thority, had  created  a  somewhat  unfortunate  im- 
pression. He  had  seemed  a  little  wanting  in  that 
energy  of  character  which  Orientals  expect  in  their 
rulers.  The  imputation  would  clearly  not  lie  against 
the  resolute  soldier  who  had  overthrown  the  Khalifa 
and  humbled  the  Boers.  Everybody  in  Egypt  knew 
that  Kitchener  was  a  strong  man,  the  sort  of  man  who 
would  'stand  no  nonsense'  if  it  came  to  the  point;  and 
nothing  could  have  been  more  salutary  for  the  Farid 
Beys,  the  Shawishes,  and  the  fluent  young  persons  of 
the  Cairo  and  Constantinople  press  and  the  Swiss 
congresses,  than  to  find  themselves  confronted  by  one 
who  had  been  the  master  of  many  legions,  and  had 
wielded  the  sword  as  well  as  the  pen.  Lord  Kitchener's 
presence  at  the  Cairo  Agency  was  the  most  practical 
commentary  on  Sir  Edward  Grey's  statement  in  the 
House  of  Commons  that  no  attempts  to  weaken  the 
British  control  would  be  of  the  slightest  effect.  It 
showed  the  agitators  that  England  still  meant  business, 


SOME    RECENT    REFORMS  259 

and  that  'Committee'  methods  would  not  work  in 
Egypt. 

Lord  Kitchener,  however,  took  a  sedate  view  of  the 
matter.  He  knew  that  the  activity  of  the  cosmo- 
politan, and  more  or  less  denationalised,  agitators  did 
not  really  express  the  sentiments  of  the  great  mass  of 
the  population.  Egypt  was  not  'seething  with  dis- 
affection,' though  there  was  more  yeasty  fermentation 
among  the  articulate  minority  of  the  large  towns  than 
is  good  for  an  Eastern  people.  On  this  subject  he  spoke 
a  few  plain  words  in  his  first  Report.  The  excitement, 
he  wrote,  caused  by  the  'totally  unexpected  action  of 
Italy,  in  declaring  war  against  the  Turkish  Empire 
and  proceeding  to  invade  Tripoli  and  Cyrenaica,'  was 
widespread  and  deep;  but  'notwithstanding  the 
mischievous  efforts  of  some  of  the  more  irresponsible 
native  newspapers,  the  people  of  Egypt  have  displayed 
the  most  praiseworthy  self-restraint  ....  Egypt  was 
declared  neutral,  and  that  neutrality  has  been  strictly 
maintained  by  Egyptians,  who  have  thus  shown  an 
admirable  devotion  to  duty,  law,  and  order,  in  spite  of 
the  intensely  sympathetic  and  religious  feelings  raised 
by  the  long  struggle  which  has  been  going  on  so  close 
to  their  own  frontier.' 

The  same  conditions  prevailed  the  following  year 
under  circumstances  of  still  greater  provocation.  The 
past  year  had  been  one  of  considerable  anxiety  owing  to 
the  war  in  the  Near  East.  On  the  war  itself  Lord 
Kitchener   does    not   offer   any   comment   beyond   one 


260  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

significant  sentence  :  'Defective  military  arrangements 
appear  to  be  responsible  for  the  breakdown  of  one  of  the 
finest  fighting  armies  that  existed  in  the  world.''  But  as 
to  the  internal  agitation  in  Egypt  we  read  : 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  report  that  political  feeling  in  other 
respects  has  lately  been  much  calmer,  and  that  the  considera- 
tion of  practical  reforms  for  the  good  of  the  country  has 
apparently  become  more  interesting  to  the  majority  of  the 
people  than  discussions  on  abstruse  political  questions 
which  are  unlikely  to  lead  to  any  useful  result.  On  returning 
to  Egypt  after  a  long  absence  I  have  been  forcibly  struck  by 
the  fact  that  the  formerly  homogeneous  body  of  intelligent 
Mohammedan  inhabitants,  who  constituted  a  collective 
community  based  on  fixed  social  laws,  is  now  split  up  and 
divided  into  parties  and  factions  of  a  political  character. 
Whatever  the  value  of  a  party  system  may  be  in  Western 
political  life  it  is  evident  that  its  application  to  an  intensely 
democratic  community,  the  essential  basis  of  whose  social 
system  is  the  brotherhood  of  man,  combined  with  respect  for 
learning  and  the  experience  of  age,  is  an  unnatural  proceeding, 
fraught  with  inevitable  division  and  weakness.  The  develop- 
ment and  elevation  of  the  character  of  a  people  depends 
mainly  on  the  growth  of  self-control  and  the  power  to  domi- 
nate natural  impulses,  as  well  as  on  the  practice  of  unobtru- 
sive self-reliance  and  perseverance,  combined  with  reasoned 
determination.  None  of  these  elements  of  advance  are  as- 
sisted in  any  way  by  party  strife.  Calm  and  well-considered 
interest  in  political  affairs  is  good  for  both  the  governed 
and  those  who  rule;  but  factitious  interest,  generally  based 
on  misrepresentation  and  maintained  by  party  funds  and 
party  tactics,  does  nothing  to  elevate  or  develop  the  intelli- 
gent character  of  an  Oriental  race.1 

1  Egypt,  No.  I  (1912),  p.  2. 


SOME    RECENT   REFORMS  261 

It  is  not  through  politics  that  salvation  will  come. 
'The  future  development  of  the  vast  mass  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Egypt  depends  upon  improved  condi- 
tions of  agriculture,  which,  with  educational  progress, 
are  the  most  essential  steps  towards  the  material  and 
moral  advance  of  the  people.'  Lord  Kitchener,  having 
restored  confidence  in  the  existing  system  and  the 
authority  of  the  law  by  making  it  plain  that  all  attempts 
at  disorder  would  be  met  by  stern  repression,  has 
devoted  himself  to  agrarian  and  educational  reforms. 
He  has  been  the  friend  of  the  fellah,  of  that  ignorant, 
enduring,  invincibly  laborious  cultivator,  who  has 
wrung  a  subsistence  from  the  dry  soil  and  wet  brown 
mud  of  the  Nile  land  through  all  the  changes  of  the 
ages.  'The  fellah,'  says  Lord  Kitchener,  'remains 
the  same  as  he  has  always  been,  one  of  the  best  and 
most  hard-working  types  of  humanity,  somewhat 
conservative,  like  most  cultivators,  and  hardly  real- 
ising the  changes  that  have  taken  place  around  him.' 

He  has  been  slow  to  understand  that  it  is  possible 
for  him  to  get  not  merely  too  little  water,  which  has 
always  been  his  standing  anxiety,  but  too  much. 
We  have  so  improved  the  irrigation  machinery  that 
the  farmer  has  become  careless  and  extravagant  in  his 
use  of  the  fertilising  flood.  Much  of  the  land  has 
become  waterlogged,  especially  the  newly-reclaimed 
Delta  areas  where  there  is  no  natural  drainage,  and 
the  crops  have  been  injured.  Cotton  pests  have  arisen, 
and   the   cattle   decreased   through   want   of  sufficient 


262  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

nutriment;  so  that  in  iqii,  though  more  land  was 
under  cultivation,  the  harvest  was  a  poor  one.  Lord 
Kitchener  set  to  work  to  remedy  these  defects.  The 
peasants  were  taught  to  husband  the  water  supply, 
drainage  operations  were  extended  in  the  Delta,  and 
measures  taken  to  extirpate  the  cotton  parasites  and 
destructive  insects.  More  careful  selection  of  the 
plant  was  found  to  be  requisite ;  and  as  the  poorer 
cultivators  often  found  it  difficult  to  obtain  good  seed 
from  the  merchants,  who  sold  them  inferior  varieties 
at  high  prices,  the  Government  now  supplies  the  fellah 
with  the  article  he  requires  at  a  reasonable  price. 

Another  great  reform  is  the  establishment  of  halakas, 
or  official  markets,  in  which  the  cultivators  can  sell 
their  cotton.  During  the  past  year  halakas  have  been 
established  throughout  the  cotton-growing  areas  of 
Egypt,  with  a  view  to  protecting  the  small  cultivator 
from  fraudulent  practices,  and  in  order  to  bring  into 
closer  contact  buyers  and  local  sellers,  who  are  thus 
enabled  to  carry  out  their  transactions  at  fixed  centres, 
under  circumstances  tending  to  a  more  regular  and 
orderly  conduct  of  business.  These  halakas  are  paid 
for  by,  and  are  under  the  direct  control  of,  the  various 
local  Councils,  provincial  or  municipal,  inspection  of 
their  general  working  being  carried  out  by  the  Ministry 
of  the  Interior  through  the  medium  of  a  British  inspec- 
tor. The  official  weighing  machines  placed  in  them 
are  periodically  inspected  and  tested  by  inspectors 
attached  to  the  Department  of  Weights  and  Measures. 


SOME    RECENT    REFORMS  263 

The  general  working  of  the  halakas  is  thus  described  : 
An  enclosed  space  about  an  acre  in  extent  is  taken  in  a 
suitable  position,  in  the  centre  of  which  the  official 
weighing  machine  is  erected,  and,  in  a  prominent  posi- 
tion, a  notice-board  is  placed,  on  which  is  daily  marked 
up  in  large  figures  the  opening  price  of  ginned  cotton, 
received  by  telegram  from  an  agent  in  the  Bourse  in 
Alexandria ;  should  there  be  a  rise  or  fall  of  more  thin 
five  piastres  during  the  morning  a  further  telegram  is 
received  and  posted  up  notifying  the  change.  In 
addition  to  this  a  circular  is  dispatched  every  afternoon 
by  the  National  Bank  of  Egypt  at  Alexandria  giving 
the  latest  prices  of  all  the  various  kinds  of  cotton  and 
of  seed.  This  notice  is  displayed  at  the  markets  in  a 
conspicuous  position.  The  small  farmer  throughout 
the  country  is  thus  informed  of  all  the  latest  prices  of 
cotton  in  Alexandria,  and  is  no  longer  obliged  to  rely 
on  information  gathered  from  interested  parties.  A 
fee  of  five  milliemes  a  kantar  is  charged  on  cotton  en- 
tering the  halaka,  and  this  amount  goes  to  meet  the 
expenses  incurred  by  the  Councils ;  the  owner  can 
then  have  all  his  cotton  weighed  free  on  the  official 
weighing  machine,  or  he  can,  if  he  wishes,  have  a  few 
bags  weighed,  for  verification  purposes  only,  before 
or  after  they  are  weighed  by  the  purchaser.  Next 
to  the  manager's  office  is  placed  a  branch  of  the  Savings 
Bank,  in  which  the  seller  can  deposit  any  money  he 
receives,  should  he  wish  to  do  so,  and  there  are  also 
store-rooms  to  be  rented. 


264  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

The  scheme,  as  might  be  expected,  has  met  with 
considerable  opposition  from  the  small  merchants. 
In  some  places  they  have  combined  in  refusing  either 
to  enter  the  halakas  or  to  purchase  cotton  that  has 
passed  through  them.  But  the  enterprise  is  welcomed 
by  the  honest  buyers  as  giving  them  a  fairer  chance  of 
competing  in  the  market  with  their  less  scrupulous 
rivals,  and  several  of  the  representatives  of  the  largest 
cotton-dealing  firms  in  the  country  have  given  practical 
and  substantial  support  to  the  halakas. 

A  more  important  reform  is  that  which  is  called  the 
Five  Feddan  Law.  It  is  intended  to  protect  the  small 
cultivator,  the  man  who  farms  five  Egyptian  acres  or 
less,  from  having  his  land,  house,  or  farming  utensils 
seized  for  debt.  The  principle  is  that  of  the  Homestead 
Law  in  the  United  States,  and  of  that  which  makes 
the  'bien  de  famille  insaisissable'  in  France;  it  is  also 
that  of  the  Punjab  Land  Alienation  Act  in  India.  The 
protection  of  the  poorer  peasants  in  this  manner  was 
rendered  necessary  by  the  action  of  the  small  foreign 
usurers  who,  scattered  throughout  the  country  in  the 
villages,  and  financed  by  various  banks,  were  able, 
with  the  support  of  the  Capitulations,  to  lend  money 
on  mortgage  to  the  fellaheen  at  exorbitant  rates  of 
interest.  Not  even  a  country  as  agriculturally  pros- 
perous as  Egypt  can  stand  such  a  burden  indefinitely, 
and  the  inducements  held  out  to  the  fellah  to  take  the 
first  step  into  debt  were  temptations  few  could  resist, 
with    the    inevitable    consequence    that,    once    in    the 


SOME    RECENT   REFORMS  265 

clutches  of  the  moneylender,  there  was  no  escape  for 
the  victim  until  the  whole  of  his  property  became  so 
involved  as  to  bring  about  his  expropriation.  It  is 
the  standing  evil  which  attends  on  peasant  proprietor- 
ship everywhere,  in  Ireland,  in  Hungary,  in  Roumania, 
in  Bengal,  and  all  wise  governments  do  their  best  to 
guard  against  it  by  making  it  difficult  or  impossible 
for  the  peasant  to  expropriate  the  holding  without 
which  he  cannot  exist.  But  with  five  acres  free  of 
debt  it  is  considered  that  the  fellah  can  live  in  comfort 
and  bring  up  his  children  properly;  and  gradually 
he  may  learn  to  do  without  the  local  usurer,  put  his 
money  into  the  savings  banks,  and  raise  funds  when 
he  needs  them  by  getting  advances  on  his  crops  from 
the  Agricultural  Bank  of  Egypt,  which  lends  under 
government  restrictions,  and  is  not  allowed  to  exact 
extravagant  interest. 

These  social  reforms  are  probably  of  more  value  to 
the  people  at  large,  at  the  moment,  than  the  remodelling 
of  the  legislature  and  electorate  which  is  provided  by 
the  new  Organic  Law  promulgated  in  July  1913.  The 
importance  of  this  belongs  to  the  future  rather  than 
the  present ;  it  is  an  extension  of  the  principle,  always 
kept  before  us  since  the  beginning  of  the  Occupation, 
that  the  Egyptians  ought  to  be  allowed  as  large  a 
share  in  the  general  and  local  administration  of  the 
country  as  they  seem  able  to  exercise  with  advantage. 
Lord  Dufferin's  famous  Report,  which  initiated  the 
new  system,  recommended  that  certain  representative 


266  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

'Institutions'  should  be  established,  though  for  the 
purpose  of  criticism,  discussion,  and  suggestion  rather 
than  to  legislate,  or  to  control  the  executive.  The 
Legislative  Council,  constituted  under  the  Organic 
Law  of  1883,  was  a  consultative  body  of  thirty  members, 
of  whom  fourteen  were  nominated  by  the  Government. 
It  examined  the  budget  and  new  laws,  and  communi- 
cated its  opinion  on  these  matters  to  the  Government, 
which,  however,  is  not  bound  to  accept  its  advice. 
The  General  Assembly  included  the  members  of  the 
Legislative  Council,  the  six  Ministers,  and  forty-six 
elective  members.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with  legis- 
lation, but  no  new  direct  personal  or  land  tax  could 
be  imposed  without  its  consent,  and  no  public  loan 
contracted.  The  General  Assembly  has  never  shown 
itself  a  very  practical  or  judicious  body,  and  one  of  its 
recent  exhibitions  of  bad  temper  and  bad  policy  was 
the  rejection  of  the  very  necessary  and  beneficial  pro- 
posal to  extend  the  concession  of  the  Suez  Canal  Com- 
pany after  the  existing  concession  expires. 

Under  the  new  Organic  Law  the  General  Assembly 
disappears,  or,  rather,  it  is  merged  in  the  Legislative 
Council,  which  is  reconstituted  with  enlarged  powers 
and  membership  as  the  Legislative  Assembly.  This 
body  will  have  eighty-nine  members,  of  whom  sixty-six 
are  elected.  The  country  is  divided  into  a  number  of 
approximately  equal  circumscriptions,  each  sending 
one  representative  to  the  Assembly,  chosen  by  second- 
ary election,  through  'electors  delegate,'  one  for  every 


SOME    RECENT    REFORMS  267 

fifty  inhabitants.  The  six  Cabinet  Ministers  are 
ex-officio  members  of  the  Assembly ;  and  in  addition 
the  Government  nominates  seventeen  members,  under 
a  proviso  which  obliges  it  to  make  its  selection  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  secure  that  certain  classes  and  races 
have  a  minimum  representation  in  the  Assembly. 
Thus  the  Copts  will  always  have  four  representatives, 
the  Bedouins  three,  the  merchants  two,  the  doctors 
two,  and  the  engineers  one.  This  is  a  judicious  pro- 
vision which  might  be  introduced  into  some  other 
constitutions.  Why  should  whole  orders  and  pro- 
fessions be  virtually  deprived  of  political  power,  as 
they  must  be  under  purely  local  representation  ? 
Moreover,  the  members  of  the  Legislative  Assembly 
must  be  elected  by  an  absolute  majority  of  votes,  so 
that  a  second  ballot  is  taken  if  no  candidate  obtains 
the  requisite  number  at  the  first  poll.  'This  system,' 
says  Lord  Kitchener,  'is  clearly  preferable  to  that  of 
the  relative  majority  under  which,  by  reason  of  the 
scattering  of  votes  among  a  number  of  candidates,  the 
election  often  results  in  a  very  imperfect  representation 
of  the  electorate.'  To  which  we  may  say  to  Lord 
Kitchener's  countrymen,  De  te  fabula.  As  a  con- 
stitutional reformer  there  might  be  scope  for  the  energies 
of  the  British  Agent  in  Westminster  as  well  as  Cairo. 

The  new  Legislative  Assembly,  like  its  predecessors, 
has  restricted  powers.  It  is  still  held  that  legislation 
and  administration  are  the  functions  of  the  Executive 
Government ;     the    Ministers    are    responsible    to    the 


268  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

Khedive,  not  to  the  Assembly ;  the  laws  will  still  be 
enacted  by  Khedivial  decrees,  drafted  and  issued  with 
the  concurrence  of  the  British  Agent.  But  the  As- 
sembly has  now  enlarged  opportunities  for  influencing 
legislation.  It  may  initiate  a  project  of  law,  'sauf  en 
ce  qui  concerne  les  lois  constitutionnelles/  and  may  send 
it  up  to  the  Council  of  Ministers.  If  the  Council 
approves,  it  returns  the  draft  Bill,  with  or  without 
amendment,  to  the  Assembly  for  public  discussion ; 
it  can  reject  the  proposal  if  it  thinks  fit,  but  it  must 
notify  the  Assembly  of  the  reasons  for  its  decision. 
In  the  ordinary  way  laws  will  be  laid  before  the 
Assembly  by  Ministers  ;  if  the  Assembly  disapproves 
the  proposal,  a  conference  must  be  held ;  and  if  no 
agreement  can  be  reached  at  this  meeting  the  question 
is  adjourned  for  fifteen  days,  at  the  expiration  of  which 
period  the  draft,  in  its  original  form  or  amended,  must 
again  be  submitted  to  the  Legislature.  If  there  is 
still  a  difference  of  opinion,  the  Government,  on  the 
initiative  of  the  Cabinet,  may  dissolve  the  Assembly 
and  call  for  another  general  election ;  or  it  can,  if  it 
pleases,  promulgate  the  proposed  law  without  further 
discussion,  though  not  without  explaining  to  the 
Assembly  the  reasons  for  overriding  its  opinion.  The 
ultimate  word  in  legislation,  it  will  be  seen,  remains 
with  the  Khedivial  authority.  But  the  new  procedure 
will  ensure  at  least  three  public  discussions  by  the 
Legislative  Assembly  and  one  private  conference  with 
Ministers,  whenever  there  is  a  disagreement  between 
the  Government  and  the  Assembly  concerning  a  project 


SOME    RECENT    REFORMS  269 

of  law.  'It  may  be  anticipated  with  some  confidence 
that  a  project  which  has  been  the  subject  of  such 
prolonged  discussion  will  not  be  promulgated  by  the 
Government  against  the  wishes  of  the  Legislative 
Assembly  unless  there  are  weighty  reasons  for  such  a 
course ;  while  the  lengthy  debates  to  which  such  a 
project  has  given  rise,  and  its  promulgation,  if  it  is 
considered  to  have  successfully  stood  the  test  of  so 
much  discussion,  may  be  taken  as  a  safe  guarantee 
that  the  law  is  really  sound.' 

In  this  way  the  more  educated  and  influential  mem- 
bers of  the  Egyptian  community  are  acquiring  a  gradual 
association  with  the  business  of  public  affairs.  The 
Government  is  still  nominally  absolute ;  it  keeps  high 
politics  and  the  final  control  of  legislation  and  adminis- 
tration in  its  own  hands.  But  if  it  does  not  recognise 
the  existence  of  a  'Sovereign  People,'  it  consults  its 
subjects,  it  hears  their  views,  it  is  open  to  receive 
remonstrances  and  suggestions  from  those  who  are  in 
contact  with  the  life  of  the  towns  and  villages.  And 
that  is  the  Oriental  version  of  'democratic  ideas';  it 
is  all  that  Eastern  tradition,  so  far  as  it  has  been  kept 
clear  of  Occidental  influences,  expects  from  a  just  and 
enlightened  ruler;  it  is  probably  as  much  in  the  way 
of  representative  institutions  as  Egypt  can  at  present 
safely  stand.  But  it  is  a  step  in  advance,  a  further 
stage  in  the  political  training  of  the  Egyptian  nation. 
If  the  Legislative  Assembly  uses  its  present  oppor- 
tunities judiciously,  it  may  eventually  be  entrusted 
with  larger  powers  and  fuller  responsibilities. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE  DRAG  ON  THE  WHEEL 

The  regeneration  of  Egypt  is  still  hampered  by  the 
fetters  clamped  upon  the  country  in  the  past.  The 
Khedivial  Government  and  its  English  advisers  have 
to  carry  on  their  administrative  and  reforming  duties 
under  the  vexatious  international  restrictions  from 
which  they  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  disembarrassing 
themselves.  Even  if  the  Legislative  Assembly  were 
clothed  with  the  fullest  parliamentary  prerogatives, 
as  we  understand  them  in  Western  communities,  it 
could  not  be  a  'sovereign'  legislature;  it  could  not 
pass  laws  which  would  be  enforced  throughout  Egypt 
and  bind  all  its  inhabitants ;  nor  can  the  Khedive 
and  his  Council  of  Ministers  ;  nor  could  the  British 
Government  if  it  so  far  departed  from  all  its  practices 
and  professions  as  to  make  the  attempt.  For  Egypt 
is  still  held  in  the  clutch  of  the  Mixed  Tribunals  and 
the  Capitulations ;  and  though  she  has  now,  under 
the  Anglo-French  Convention  of  1904,  almost  resumed 
her  financial  and  economic  freedom,  she  remains  in 
humiliating  tutelage  as  regards  the  administration  of 
justice  and  the  exercise  both  of  legislative  and  execu- 
tive authority.     The  horde  of  foreigners   and  foreign 

270 


THE    DRAG    ON    THE    WHEEL  271 

subjects  are  exempt  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Egyp- 
tian courts  and  largely  freed  from  the  restraints  and 
obligations  of  the  ordinary  Egyptian  laws.  The 
Mixed  Tribunals,  established  by  Nubar  Pasha  in  1876, 
at  the  time  when  the  hand  of  the  European  creditor 
lay  heaviest  upon  Egypt,  decide  all  civil  suits  in  which 
European  subjects  or  Americans  are  parties.  And 
these  courts  are  independent  of  the  Government, 
which  can  neither  appoint  nor  dismiss  the  judges,  who 
are  nominated  by  eleven  European  Powers,  great  and 
small,  and  by  the  United  States.  They  also  try  cer- 
tain penal  cases,  and  offences  against  the  bankruptcy 
laws  in  which  foreigners  are  concerned.  If  a  foreign 
subject  is  accused  of  a  crime  he  is  not  amenable  to  the 
Egyptian  Parquet,  but  is  brought  before  the  court  of 
his  own  Consulate,  which  may  or  may  not  have  a 
competent  judicial  officer  to  deal  with  him. 

It  follows  from  this  arrangement  that  the  Mixed 
Tribunals  really  exercise  a  dispensing  authority  over 
Egyptian  legislation,  civil  and  criminal ;  for  the  judges 
not  only  interpret  the  law  but  they  decide  whether 
they  will  accept  and  administer  it.  If  they  choose 
to  hold  that  any  Khedivial  decree  is  ultra  vires  or  con- 
trary to  the  Capitulations,  or  otherwise  unsatisfactory, 
they  can  and  do  ignore  it.  Almost  every  act  of  the 
Government  is  done  on  sufferance,  since  there  is  no 
means  of  compelling  the  Mixed  Tribunals  to  recognise 
and  obey  it.  In  fact  the  judges  of  the  Tribunals  can 
make   such    modifications   of  the   law   as   they    please 


272  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

by  agreement  amongst  themselves,  while  the  Govern- 
ment is  powerless  to  interfere  with  them.  These 
judges  have  now  been  constituted  a  regular  legislative 
committee  with  authority  to  legislate  for  foreigners; 
but  any  Power,  however  trivial  its  interests  in  Egypt, 
may  object  to  an  amendment  of  the  existing  mixed 
codes,  and  cause  indefinite  delays. 

This  new  scheme  of  legislation  for  European  residents 
is  regarded  by  Lord  Kitchener  as  'a  notable  advance 
on  the  previous  state  of  affairs  —  one,  indeed,  which 
has  cost  the  Egyptian  Government,  and  more  partic- 
ularly the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs,  a  very  consider- 
able effort.'  But  it  still  leaves  the  judges  with  power 
to  make  the  law  which  they  themselves  are  supposed 
to  interpret,  and  it  still  places  the  Egyptian  Executive 
at  the  mercy  of  irresponsible  nominees,  appointed  by 
a  dozen  external  authorities ;  so  that  it  cannot  be 
considered  as  'more  than  a  temporary  makeshift,  and 
a  more  or  less  satisfactory  palliative  of  the  legislative 
impotence  under  which  the  country  has  suffered  so 
long.'  Thus  the  important  Five  Feddan  law,  of  which 
mention  has  been  made,  could  not  have  come  into 
operation  if  the  Mixed  Legislative  Council  had  refused 
its  assent ;  for  many  of  the  moneylenders  affected  by  it 
are  Greeks,  Italians,  and  other  foreigners. 

The  Consular  criminal  jurisdiction  is  also  a  nuisance 
and  sometimes  a  scandal.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a 
suggestive  passage  from  the  Report : 


THE    DRAG    ON   THE   WHEEL  273 

White  Slave  Traffic 

Under  the  limits  imposed  on  their  activity  by  the  Capitula- 
tions, the  Egyptian  police  have  done  their  best  during  the 
year  to  cope  with  this  deplorable  evil.  Over  1100  girls  of 
minor  age  have  been  met  on  disembarking  and  handed  over 
to  various  authorities  who  accept  responsibility  for  their 
welfare,  while  others  have  been  rescued  from  vice  and  con- 
signed to  the  charge  of  institutions  fitted  to  take  care  of  them. 
In  certain  cases  coming  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  native 
tribunals,  heavy  sentences  have  been  passed  for  instigating 
or  facilitating  the  debauchery  of  minors.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  recent  visit  of  Mr.  Alexander  Coote,  the  Secretary  of 
the  International  Bureau  for  the  Repression  of  the  White 
Slave  Traffic,  to  this  country  may  help  to  organise  and 
strengthen  the  societies  which  already  exist  here  for  this  pur- 
pose. In  present  circumstances,  however,  as  the  trade  is 
carried  on,  not  by  Egyptians,  but  by  foreigners,  who  are  only 
subject  to  their  own  special  jurisdictions,  it  is  impossible  for 
the  Egyptian  Government  to  deal  effectively  with  the 
situation.1 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  it  is  not  only  for- 
eigners who  are  amenable  to  this  extra-territorial  jus- 
tice. The  Mixed  Courts  try  all  civil  suits  in  which 
one  party  is  European  and  the  other  native.  There 
are  Egyptian  judges  in  all  these  courts,  sitting  with 
the  European  lawyers  who  are  appointed  on  the  nomi- 
nation of  their  respective  Governments.  So  a  native 
proprietor  who  may  have  a  dispute  with  a  European 
land  company  or  its  agents  knows  that,  if  the  quarrel 
comes  to  be  fought  out  by  litigation,  he  will  have  to 

1  Egypt,  No.  1  (1913),  p.  36. 

T 


274  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

go  to  the  Mixed  Courts,  that  is  to  say  to  what  is  practi- 
cally a  foreign  tribunal  administering  a  foreign  system 
of  law.  He  will  require  the  assistance  of  French-speak- 
ing counsel,  acquainted  with  European  codes  and 
procedure ;  and  he  may  be  carried  into  legal  depths 
which  he  would  never  have  to  sound  if  he  could  take 
his  case  to  the  local  mudir's  court  with  the  assistance 
of  an  advocate  familiar  with  colloquial  Arabic.  The 
whole  process  is  so  complicated  and  expensive  that 
poor  natives  cannot  resort  to  it,  and  they  probably 
suffer  some  amount  of  injustice  from  the  less  reputable 
class  of  Europeans  in  consequence. 

Lord  Kitchener  does  not,  however,  suggest  the  com- 
plete abolition  of  the  mixed  jurisdiction.  He  thinks 
that  it  is  still  necessary  for  the  due  protection  of  the 
very  large  financial  interests  held  by  foreigners  in 
Egypt.  But  the  Tribunals  need  thorough-going  reform. 
For  one  thing  they  are  no  longer  so  well  conducted  as 
they  used  to  be  in  the  early  days  of  the  Occupation ; 
they  do  not  command  the  services  of  judges  of  the 
high  stamp  of  Sir  John  Scott  and  his  French  colleagues, 
nor  have  they  quite  the  same  reputation  for  indepen- 
dence or  for  effectiveness.  Moreover  they  are  dominated 
by  principles,  which  we  do  not  recognise  in  the  British 
Empire,  and  are  entirely  opposed  to  the  English  and 
American  judicial  and  administrative  spirit. 

The  Mixed  Courts  bear  witness  to  the  influence  of 
the  French  ideas  which  prevailed  in  Egypt  all  through 
the  middle  portion  of  the  nineteenth  century.     They 


THE    DRAG    ON   THE    WHEEL  275 

imported  the  French  institution  of  the  Parquet,  and 
the  French  conception  of  the  entire  magisterial  and 
judicial  body  as  a  department  of  state.  The  judges, 
the  magistrates,  the  crown  lawyers,  and  public  prose- 
cutors, the  collective  Parquet,  are  a  legal  hierarchy,  a 
portion  of  the  executive  machine.  The  judge  often 
takes  upon  himself  the  main  burden  of  bringing  a 
criminal  to  justice,  and  extracting,  by  his  own  inter- 
rogatories, that  'confession'  to  which  the  Parquet 
attaches  so  much  importance.  This  is  not  the  English 
view  of  the  proper  functions  of  the  bench,  and  it  does 
not  fit  in  with  the  political  ideas  we  are  endeavouring 
to  implant  in  the  minds  of  educated  Egyptians.  The 
present  Judicial  Adviser  has  suggested  that  various 
changes  in  the  organisation  and  procedure  of  the  courts 
should  be  introduced.  But  here  the  Egyptian  Govern- 
ment is  met  by  the  old  trouble.  Nothing  can  be  done 
except  by  negotiation  with  a  bevy  of  Foreign  Offices 
which  cling  obstinately  to  their  lever  for  interfering 
with  the  affairs  of  Egypt.  'I  regard  it  as  very  unfor- 
tunate,' says  Lord  Kitchener,  'that  political  opposition 
should  prevent  the  adoption  of  reforms  in  these  courts 
which  the  responsible  Government  of  the  country 
considers  essential.' 

Unfortunate  it  is ;  but  it  is  one  of  the  misfortunes 
from  which  Egypt  can  never  be  completely  liberated 
so  long  as  she  continues  to  be  burdened  by  the  Ca- 
pitulations. 

Every  reader  of  the  books  and  official  publications 


276  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

on  Egypt  must  be  very  familiar  with  this  name.  The 
thing  confronts  one  at  every  turn  in  the  literature  of 
the  subject,  and  it  has  hampered  and  obstructed  us 
constantly  since  the  beginning  of  the  Occupation. 
British  officials  have  found  it  the  worst  possible  ob- 
stacle in  their  path,  and  the  most  serious  drag  on  their 
efforts. 

Most  people  know  roughly  what  the  Capitulations 
are ;  but  it  is  only  the  resident  in  Egypt  who  is  fully 
aware  of  the  manner  in  which  their  —  mostly  baneful  — 
influence  is  exercised.  The  Capitulations  are  the 
treaties  and  conventions  which  give  Europeans  in  the 
East  the  right  of  exemption  from  the  local  tribunals. 
In  Turkey  and  Egypt  they  date  back  several  centuries. 
They  are  a  testimony,  not  to  the  weakness,  but  to  the 
power,  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  in  the  past.  Moham- 
medanism, in  its  haughty  disdain  for  the  Christian 
dogs,  had  no  legal  system  which  could  apply  to  them ; 
the  law  of  Islam  was  too  sacred  to  extend  its  protection 
to  infidels.  The  European  Powers  were,  therefore, 
allowed  to  arrange  that  if  their  nationals  committed 
crimes  their  own  Consular  representatives  should  try 
the  offenders.  It  was  a  valuable  privilege  in  times 
when  the  Christian  in  the  Moslem  territories  was 
scarcely  treated  as  a  human  being ;  and  it  has  been 
jealously  maintained  and  extended  as  the  numbers  of 
European  traders  and  settlers  in  the  East  increased. 
When  we  took  the  affairs  of  Egypt  in  hand  we  found 
that  pretty  nearly  every  civilised   Power,   small   and 


THE    DRAG    ON   THE   WHEEL  277 

great,  had  a  Capitulation  in  full  working  order  for  its 
own  subjects.  Thus  there  was,  and  is,  an  imperium 
in  imperio,  or  rather  some  twenty-three  of  them. 
Every  Consul  is  the  privileged  protector  and  guardian 
of  a  number  of  persons  who  owe  no  allegiance  to  the 
nominal  head  of  the  state,  and  stand  outside  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice  by  his  officers.  If  a  foreigner 
commits  a  crime  he  cannot  be  arrested  by  the  Egyptian 
police,  nor  may  he  be  brought  up  before  an  Egyptian 
judge,  and  tried  by  Egyptian  law.  The  police  or  the 
aggrieved  party  can  only  bring  him  before  his  own 
consular  court.  And  before  he  can  be  punished  it 
must  be  proved  that  he  has  committed  an  offence, 
not  only  against  the  law  of  Egypt,  but  against  the  law 
of  his  own  state,  or  at  any  rate  against  such  local  law 
as  the  consular  authorities  agree  to  recognise. 

In  the  old  days  this  privilege  was  jealously  asserted 
by  the  Powers  whose  subjects  were  settled  as  residents 
and  traders  in  Egypt,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  Turkish 
Empire.  There  was  a  legitimate  distrust  of  local 
justice  and  its  administration.  No  European  cared 
to  be  at  the  mercy  of  magistrates  and  police,  who  might 
be  corrupt,  and  were  certain  to  be  ignorant  of  Western 
legal  principles ;  and  who  were  bound  to  obey  any 
ordinance  issued  by  a  despotic  Oriental  government. 
Without  the  protection  afforded  by  the  Capitulations, 
foreign  traders  could  hardly  have  found  it  possible  to 
carry  on  business  in  Egypt  at  all ;  and  the  existence 
of  the  European  mercantile  community  was,  on  the 


278  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

whole,  advantageous  to  the  country,  and  could  not 
be  easily  dispensed  with.  Thus  the  Capitulations  had 
their  uses  so  long  as  Egypt  remained  under  purely 
native  rule.  But  since  the  influence  of  a  Western 
Power  has  prevailed  at  the  centre  of  authority,  and 
permeated  the  entire  political  organism,  they  are 
scarcely  necessary,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  they  lend 
themselves  easily  to  abuse  and  disorder.  The  Egyptian 
police  may  not  always  deal  successfully  with  native 
offenders ;  but  with  foreigners  their  difficulties  are 
more  serious.  They  cannot  even  punish  trifling  in- 
fractions of  their  own  regulations  without  so  much 
trouble  that  they  often  decline  to  make  the  attempt, 
and  prefer  to  let  the  peccant  alien  escape  the  penalty 
of  his  misdeeds. 

In  England  and  elsewhere  a  driver  of  a  vehicle  who 
disobeys  the  police  orders  as  to  the  speed  limit  in  cities 
or  the  rule  of  the  road  is  summarily  disposed  of.  In 
Cairo,  a  lively  young  Frenchman,  anxious  to  test  the 
paces  of  his  new  motor-car,  dashes  through  the  crowded 
outlet  of  the  great  Nile  bridge,  sends  donkeys  and 
loaded  camels  scurrying  in  alarm  out  of  their  course, 
endangers  the  lives  of  pedestrians  as  he  cuts  round  a 
corner  on  his  wrong  side,  and  finally  impinges  upon  a 
loaded  trolley,  and  pulls  up,  having  done  some  damage 
to  woodwork  and  human  limbs.  If  he  were  a  native 
EfTendi  the  police  would  arrest  him,  hale  him  before  a 
magistrate,  and  have  him  duly  fined  or  imprisoned. 
As   a   European,   they   can   only   take   his   name   and 


THE    DRAG    ON    THE    WHEEL  279 

threaten  him  with  proceedings  before  his  consular 
court.  In  a  case  like  this  they  would  probably  succeed 
in  getting  the  offender  punished  —  that  is,  always  sup- 
posing his  conduct  constitutes  a  breach  of  the  French 
code  as  well  as  a  violation  of  the  Egyptian  police  rules. 
But  suppose  there  is  some  doubt  in  the  matter,  and 
the  foreigner  feels  himself  the  victim  of  a  grievance  ? 
Naturally  the  first  person  he  goes  to  for  redress  is  his 
Consul,  who  is  more  interested  in  assisting  his  fellow- 
countryman  to  get  out  of  a  difficulty  than  in  further- 
ing the  ends  of  Egyptian  justice. 

In  the  consular  courts  of  the  greater  Western  Powers 
there  is,  of  course,  no  sort  of  disposition  to  use  the 
international  privilege  in  order  to  shield  vulgar  crimi- 
nals ;  indeed,  I  have  heard  Englishmen  aver  that  this 
judicial  impartiality  is  carried  so  far  that  an  accused 
British  subject  might  sometimes  have  a  better  chance 
of  acquittal  if  he  were  tried  before  the  native  judges. 
But  certain  of  the  other  consulates  are  less  particular. 
Their  main  object  is  to  protect  and  serve  their  own 
nationals,  even  if  these  happen  to  deserve  small  in- 
dulgence from  society  and  the  law.  It  is  common 
knowledge  that  illicit  pursuits  and  immoral  practices 
have  been  carried  on  more  or  less  openly  under  the 
shelter  of  the  Capitulations.  A  horde  of  Greeks, 
Levantines,  Italians,  Algerians,  Maltese,  and  non- 
descripts of  all  kinds  descended  upon  Egypt  in  Ismail's 
time,  and  many  of  them  or  their  descendants  are  there 
still,  all  prepared  to  claim  the  protection  of  a  foreign 


28o  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

flag.  The  smuggler  of  hashish,  the  keeper  of  a  gambling 
hell,  the  seller  of  poisoned  intoxicants,  the  owner  of  a 
night-house,  may  belong  to  this  body  of  persons.  In 
the  interests  of  public  security  and  order  the  authori- 
ties ought  to  be  able  to  suppress  or  coerce  them 
promptly  and  effectually.  But  the  cumbrous  Capi- 
tulation system  ties  their  hands.  They  cannot  act 
without  the  concurrence  of  the  Consuls,  and  they  are 
not  allowed  to  exercise  the  ordinary  powers  with  which 
the  police  are  armed  against  the  criminal  and  disorderly 
classes.  The  European  scoundrel  defies  them,  and 
he  is  supported  by  his  diplomatic  agency,  which  will 
not  allow  international  rights  to  be  pared  away,  even 
at  the  risk  of  encouraging  international  ruffianism. 
And  in  our  efforts  to  reform  Egyptian  justice  and 
diminish  crime  we  are  constantly  brought  up  against 
this  solid  barrier  of  alien  privilege. 

The  true  remedy  is  the  abolition,  or  rather  the  modi- 
fication, of  the  Capitulations,  on  which  it  is  under- 
stood that  the  Government  has  again  quite  recently 
approached  the  European  Powers.1     If  the  Capitula- 

1  'A  short  time  ago  a  Russian  subject  was,  at  the  request  of  the  Consular 
authorities,  arrested  by  the  Egyptian  police  and  handed  over  to  them  for 
deportation  to  Russia.  I  am  not  familiar  with  the  details  of  the  case,  neither, 
for  the  purposes  of  my  present  argument,  is  any  knowledge  of  those  details 
required.  The  nature  of  the  offence  of  which  this  man,  Adamovitch  by 
name,  was  accused,  as  also  the  question  of  whether  he  was  guilty  or  innocent 
of  that  offence,  are  altogether  beside  the  point.  The  legal  obligation  of  the 
Egyptian  Government  to  comply  with  the  request  that  the  man  should  be 
handed  over  to  the  Russian  Consular  authorities  would  have  been  precisely 
the  same  if  he  had  been  accused  of  no  offence  at  all.  The  result,  however, 
has  been  to  touch  one  of  the  most  tender  points  in  the  English  political 


THE    DRAG    ON   THE    WHEEL  281 

tions  were  abandoned,  the  Mixed  Tribunals  could 
be  swept  away  and  replaced  by  native  courts,  in  which, 
for  some  time  at  least,  European  judges  or  assessors 
would  be  employed  as  well  as  Egyptians ;  and  the 
whole  vexatious  system  of  international  interference 
in  domestic  legislation  would  disappear.  The  Capitu- 
lations, valuable  enough  so  long  as  Egypt  was  involved 
in  Turkish  misrule  or  local  chaos,  are  obsolete  now 
that  she  has  a  stable  government  and  an  enlightened 
system  of  law  and  administration.  But  whether  our 
diplomacy  can  succeed  in  the  requisite  process  of  bar- 
gaining remains  to  be  seen.  France  would  not  object, 
for  her  acquiescence  seems  to  be  implied  by  the  Treaty 
of  1904. 1     But  it  is  different  with  some  others  of  the 

conscience.  It  has  become  clear  that  a  country  which  is  not,  indeed,  British 
territory,  but  which  is  held  by  a  British  garrison,  and  in  which  British  in- 
fluence is  predominant,  affords  no  safe  asylum  for  a  political  refugee.  With- 
out in  any  way  wishing  to  underrate  the  importance  of  this  consideration,  I 
think  it  necessary  to  point  out  that  this  is  only  one  out  of  the  many  anomalies 
which  might  be  indicated  in  the  working  of  that  most  perplexing  political 
creation  entitled  the  Egyptian  Government  and  administration.  Many 
instances  might,  in  fact,  be  cited  which,  albeit  they  are  less  calculated  to 
attract  public  attention  in  this  country,  afford  even  stronger  ground  for 
holding  that  the  time  has  come  for  reforming  the  system  hitherto  known  as 
that  of  the  Capitulations.'  —  Lord  Cromer  on  'The  Capitulations  in  Egypt' 
in  the  Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  July  191 3 . 

1  The  clause  of  the  Anglo-French  Agreement,  which  was  at  first  kept 
secret,  but  has  now  been  published,  runs  as  follows : 

'In  the  event  of  their  [His  Britannic  Majesty's  Government]  considering 
it  desirable  to  introduce  in  Egypt  reforms  tending  to  assimilate  the  Egyptian 
legislative  system  to  that  in  force  in  other  civilised  countries,  the  Government 
of  the  French  Republic  will  not  refuse  to  entertain  any  such  proposals,  on 
the  understanding  that  His  Britannic  Majesty's  Government  will  agree  to 
entertain  the  suggestions  that  the  Government  of  the  French  Republic  may 
have  to  make  to  them  with  a  view  of  introducing  similar  reforms  in  Morocco. 


282  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

large  and  little  Powers,  who  will  not  give  up  their  last 
political  foothold  in  the  Nile  Valley,  and  their  oppor- 
tunity for  bringing  pressure  to  bear  on  the  de  facto 
rulers  of  Egypt,  without  some  consideration.  More- 
over, they  can  always  urge  with  plausibility  that  they 
have  no  guarantee  for  the  permanence  of  the  existing 
situation.  For  to  them  Egypt  is  still  a  semi-inde- 
pendent State,  tributary  to  the  Ottoman  sultanate. 
We  are  not  formally  responsible  for  its  destinies ;  we 
are,  it  may  be  repeated,  only  temporarily  providing 
the  Khedive  with  some  British  troops  to  assist  him  in 
keeping  order,  and  with  a  British  Consul-General 
and  a  few  other  officials  who  are  kind  enough  to  give 
their  'advice'  to  his  Ministers.  You  are,  the  Foreign 
Offices  may  say,  pledged  to  terminate  your  Occupa- 
tion some  time ;  it  may  suit  you,  for  what  we  know,  to 
redeem  your  pledge  ten  years,  or  two  years,  hence, 
and  then  our  subjects  will  need  the  safeguard  of  the 
Capitulations  as  much  as  ever. 

The  unanswerable  reply  to  all  such  contentions  would 
be  to  dismiss  the  fiction  of  a  temporary  Occupation 
and  declare  boldly  that  Egypt  is  a  British  Protectorate, 
and  that  the  British  Empire  is,  and  will  remain,  re- 
sponsible for  its  external  safety  and  its  internal  order. 
It  is  on  the  whole  creditable  to  the  self-restraint  of 
English  diplomacy  that  it  has  forborne  to  take  this 
step  during  the  past  few  years.  With  Austria  convert- 
ing its  occupation  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  into 
formal  incorporation,  and  Italy  seizing  the  Tripolitaine, 


THE    DRAG    ON   THE    WHEEL  283 

it  would  have  seemed  natural  enough  that  an  English 
Protectorate  should  have  been  proclaimed,  particularly 
as  that  step  would  have  been  extremely  beneficial  to 
Egypt,  besides  making  it  clear  to  all  the  world  that 
we  intended  to  maintain  our  position  in  the  Eastern 
Mediterranean.  But  we  acted  wisely  in  declining  to 
lend  ourselves,  even  in  appearance,  to  the  enterprise  of 
despoiling  Turkey  in  the  hour  of  her  distresses,  and 
inflicting  a  further  shock  upon  Mussulman  sentiment. 
Moreover,  the  conversion  of  our  anomalous  super- 
vision into  a  definite  political  control  would  be  deeply 
unpopular  in  Egypt,  however  advantageous  to  all 
classes  of  the  population. 

Yet  it  would  undoubtedly  simplify  the  difficult 
business  we  have  undertaken  in  the  Lower  Nile  lands. 
The  reports  of  Lord  Cromer,  Sir  Eldon  Gorst,  and 
Lord  Kitchener  bear  constant  testimony  to  the  in- 
convenience of  reforming  an  Oriental  country  through 
the  medium  of  its  own  government.  In  Egypt  we 
are  at  once  responsible  and  irresponsible.  We  rule 
through  the  Khedive  and  his  Ministers ;  and  we  have 
to  get  the  right  things  done  by  a  mixture  of  admonition 
and  veiled  pressure,  which  must  throw  a  heavy  strain 
upon  the  tact,  temper,  and  firmness  of  all  parties  con- 
cerned. The  Khedive  himself  would  probably  have 
as  little  cause  for  regret  as  anybody  if  the  Occupation 
were  converted  into  a  Protectorate,  and  if  His  Majesty's 
Consul-General  at  Cairo  became  the  British  Resident. 
But  we  owe  it  to  ourselves,  and  to  the  pledges  we  have 


284  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

made  to  the  world,  to  maintain  the  present  system 
unless  it  is  rendered  clearly  intolerable  by  causes  which 
affect  the  British  Empire  and  its  relations  to  other 
Powers  more  than  Egypt  itself. 

We  have  done  much  on  the  Lower  Nile  with  our 
hands  tied.  How  much  we  can  do  where  we  are  free 
to  act  with  a  single  eye  to  the  good  of  the  subject  race, 
we  have  shown  in  the  Sudan.  Something  has  been 
said  in  previous  chapters  of  the  progress  made  by  that 
great  tropical  dependency  of  Britain,  as  it  virtually 
is,  under  the  beneficent  despotism  of  Sir  Reginald 
Wingate  and  his  staff  of  military  and  civil  officials. 
Lord  Kitchener's  testimony  to  the  value  of  the  work 
is  given  in  a  few  eloquent  sentences  of  his  latest  Report : 

When  we  conquered  the  Sudan  there  was  hardly  a  single 
inhabitant  who  possessed  any  money,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  the  righting  men,  the  whole  population  was  practically 
starving.  Nothing,  I  think,  strikes  one  more  in  revisiting 
the  Sudan  to-day  than  the  great  increase  which  has  taken 
place  in  the  individual  prosperity  of  its  inhabitants.  This 
increased  prosperity,  which  is  the  result  of  careful  adminis- 
tration, has  been  so  equally  divided  throughout  the  entire 
population  that  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there  is  now 
hardly  a  poor  man  in  the  Sudan.  Unlike  the  Egyptian 
fellahin,  the  Sudan  cultivators  are  not  bound  down  by  debts, 
and  have  not,  therefore,  to  struggle  to  meet  the  exorbitant 
interest  of  the  usurers  who  prey  upon  this  class  in  Egypt. 
In  the  Sudan  the  benefits  of  peace  have  been  fully  reaped  by 
the  cultivators,  and  the  increased  facilities  of  communication 
have  brought  markets  hitherto  undreamt  of  to  their  doors. 
The  development  of  the  rich  products  of  the  country  has  been 


THE    DRAG    ON   THE    WHEEL  285 

carefully  fostered,  and  a  golden  harvest  has  thus  been  brought 
in  which  has  remained  in  the  country.  It  is,  therefore,  not 
surprising  that  the  people  are  contented,  happy,  and  loyal. 
When  expressions  of  this  happiness  and  contentment  are 
heard,  it  is  satisfactory  to  feel  that  they  are  not  merely  word 
painting  for  the  benefit  of  the  rulers  of  the  country,  but  are 
based,  as  the  people  themselves  maintain,  on  solid  facts. 

This  is  what  a  few  Englishmen  have  contrived  to 
effect  in  the  Sudan  in  a  decade  and  a  half;  and  their 
success  has  been  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  here  there 
were  no  Capitulations  to  hamper  them,  nor  the  encum- 
brance of  an  alien  legal  system.  In  Egypt,  where  the 
task  is  more  complex  and  the  difficulties  heavier,  the 
change  has  been  less  striking;  but  solid  and  substantial 
benefits  have  been  conferred  upon  the  country,  which 
is  beyond  all  question  more  prosperous,  more  peace- 
ful, and  more  stable,  than  it  was  when  the  Occupation 
began. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
CONCLUSIONS 

We  are  not  popular  in  Egypt.  Feared  we  may  be 
by  some ;  respected,  I  doubt  not,  by  many  others ; 
but  really  liked,  I  am  sure,  by  very  few.  That  the 
benefits  produced  by  the  Occupation  are  recognised 
by  a  considerable  section  of  the  Egyptian  population 
is  unquestionable.  The  merchants,  the  traders,  the 
shopkeepers  of  the  towns,  the  people  who  have  bought 
land  and  made  money  by  it,  would  shudder  at  the 
thought  of  changing  the  regime  under  which  they  have 
so  long  lived  in  security  and  grown  prosperous.  Indeed, 
it  is  probable  that  almost  everybody  in  Egypt,  who 
owns  property  or  carries  on  a  settled  business,  would 
be  alarmed  if  there  were  any  serious  chance  of  bringing 
the  Occupation  to  an  end. 

But  they  have  no  love  for  us  personally.  The 
Englishman  has  the  capacity  to  win  the  esteem,  and 
even  the  affection,  of  primitive  or  semi-barbarous 
peoples.  You  see  that,  for  instance,  in  the  Sudan, 
where  sometimes  a  retiring  official  will  be  escorted  for 
miles  on  his  homeward  journey  by  a  crowd  of  sheikhs 
and  tribesmen  who  will  bid  him  farewell  with  tears. 
But  when  we  have  to  rule  civilised  or  partly  civilised 

286 


CONCLUSIONS  287 

communities  we  are  less  successful  in  conciliating  our 
subjects.  We  have  the  defects  of  our  qualities,  the 
defects  which  have  made  difficulties  for  us  in  Ireland, 
in  South  Africa,  in  Bengal,  and  in  French  Canada. 
In  Egypt,  as  elsewhere,  we  retain  our  characteristic 
Anglo-Saxonism.  The  British  official  community  lives 
in  a  little  world  apart,  thinking  of  '  home,'  and  surround- 
ing itself,  as  far  as  possible,  with  home-like  associa- 
tions. Of  native  society  it  sees  little ;  and  though  it 
may  meet  educated  natives  in  the  public  offices,  in 
the  orderly-room,  and  in  business,  it  does  not  really 
get  into  touch  with  them.  And  the  educated,  Euro- 
peanised,  Egyptian  for  his  part  finds  it  hard  to  be  at 
ease  with  us.  He  prefers  the  continental  type  of 
European,  and  when  he  looks  westward  it  is  to  Paris, 
not  London,  that  he  directs  his  gaze,  and  it  is,  as  I  have 
previously  explained,  the  peculiar  products  of  Parisian 
culture  that  he  specially  appreciates. 

Throughout  the  entire  period  of  our  connection  with 
the  country  we  have  had  to  cope  with  persistent  and 
determined  agitation  which  has  for  its  avowed  object 
that  of  reclaiming  '  Egypt  for  the  Egyptians,'  and  re- 
moving foreign  (which  means  British)  control  and 
supervision.  We  have  been  doing  our  work,  subject 
to  constant  opposition  and  interruption  from  those 
who  think  we  ought  not  to  be  doing  it  at  all.  The 
Nationalist  movement,  which  in  the  form  of  a  military 
insurrection  was  the  immediate  cause  of  our  inter- 
vention, has  never  died  down.     It  has  given  birth  to 


288  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

various  schools  of  'Reformers,'  some  of  whom  merely 
affect  to  ask  that  the  official  administration  should 
be  left  in  native  hands,  while  others  demand  a  full 
parliamentary  constitution  with  a  cabinet  responsible 
to  an  elected  legislature.  It  finds  an  outlet  in  more 
dangerous  ways,  in  plans  and  combinations  to  over- 
throw the  Khedivial  government  and  its  supporters, 
in  the  angry  rhetoric  of  the  writers  and  talkers  of  the 
Geneva  congresses,  and  in  the  subterranean  work  of 
the  fiercer  conspirators,  who  weave  assassination  plots 
and  sometimes  succeed  in  carrying  them  out.  The 
constitutional  reformers  have  disclaimed  all  complicity 
with  such  desperadoes  as  the  fanatic  Wardani,  who 
murdered  the  late  amiable  and  high-minded  Premier, 
Boutros  Pasha,  and  with  those  who  concocted  an 
abortive  attempt  on  the  life  of  the  Khedive  and  Lord 
Kitchener.  Many  of  them  no  doubt  are  sincere. 
But  in  all  such  cases  the  border  line  between  those  who 
only  'talk  daggers,'  and  those  who  would  be  quite 
willing  to  use  them,  is  apt  to  be  undefined.  Certainly 
a  considerable  number  of  the  Egyptian  Nationalists 
are  respectable,  and,  according  to  their  lights,  patriotic 
persons,  not  unworthy  of  the  ostentatious  patronage 
extended  to  them  by  travelling  English  M.P.'s  and 
other  vindicators  of  the  rights  of  peoples. 

But  some  of  these  latter  gentlemen  would  be  a  good 
deal  astonished  if  they  discovered  how  close  is  the 
connection  between  certain  of  their  clients,  who  talk 
with    so    much    cultured    ease    of   enlightenment    and 


CONCLUSIONS  289 

reform,  and  show  so  laudable  a  familiarity  with  modern 
progressive  literature,  and  certain  other  persons  who 
are  seeking  to  kindle  a  Moslem  fury  against  the  Fer- 
inghi  and  all  their  works  and  ways.  Even  from  the 
latter  one  cannot  withhold  some  measure  of  sympathy. 
It  is  hard  for  any  class  of  men,  especially  for  men  who 
are  young,  ambitious,  high-spirited,  to  be  governed  — 
though  it  be  for  their  own  good  —  by  those  who  are 
alien  from  them  in  religion,  race,  and  sentiment.  There 
is  plenty  of  sheer  social  envy,  of  personal  greed,  of 
yeasty  idealism,  of  impatient  vanity,  in  the  Egyptian 
Nationalist  movement.  So  there  is  in  all  such  agita- 
tions. But  it  has  its  better  elements ;  we  can  only 
hope,  without  too  confidently  expecting,  that  we  shall 
gradually  succeed  in  reconciling  these  to  an  anomalous, 
but  for  the  present  an  advantageous  and  indeed  inevit- 
able, political  expedient. 

The  Nationalists  might  be  more  effective  for  mis- 
chief if  they  were  less  divided  by  internal  dissensions 
and  more  skilfully  directed.  They  lost  the  ablest  of 
their  leaders  some  years  ago  by  the  death  of  Mustapha 
Kamel  Pasha,  the  chief  organiser  of  the  extremist 
party.  Kamel  was  a  man  of  some  talent  and  much 
power  of  fluent  expression  both  in  speech  and  writing. 
His  newspaper,  the  Egyptian  Standard,  was  virulent 
in  its  abuse  of  England  and  the  English.  But  it  was 
written  with  literary  skill  and  argumentative  resource- 
fulness, and  some  of  its  articles,  if  bad  politics,  were 
excellent  journalism,   forcible,  expressive,   and   ingeni- 


290  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

ously  calculated  to  rouse  native  passion  against  British 
influence  in  every  shape.  Mustapha  Kamel's  national- 
ism was  of  the  most  aggressive  and  assertive  type. 
His  aim  was  to  persuade  his  countrymen  that  British 
control  in  Egypt  was  not  merely  tyrannical,  but  also 
glaringly  inefficient.  He  attacked  the  officials  of 
every  department  with  unmeasured  invective,  not  even 
sparing  those  who  had  been  responsible  for  scientific 
and  administrative  achievements  which  have  evoked 
the  admiration  of  the  world.  In  many  articles  he 
endeavoured  to  prove  —  or  at  any  rate  to  produce  the 
impression  on  the  minds  of  his  readers  —  that  the 
splendid  irrigation  work  of  Sir  Colin  Scott-Moncrieflf 
and  his  successors  was  only  a  dismal  failure.  The 
English  canals  and  barrages  were  simply  draining  the 
country  of  its  life-blood,  and  would  in  due  course  send 
it  back  to  desert.  Our  agriculture  was  a  mistake;  our 
education  an  imposture;  our  financial  and  judicial 
services  utterly  inadequate.  Kamel  tried  to  persuade 
his  followers  that  Egypt  was  thoroughly  mismanaged 
under  English  supervision,  and  would  remain  mis- 
managed until  the  administration  was  entirely  trans- 
ferred to  native  hands.  His  influence,  not  only  with 
the  educated  discontented  class,  but  with  the  masses 
of  the  large  towns,  was  very  great.  Seldom  has  such 
a  mighty  crowd  been  seen,  even  in  an  Oriental  city,  as 
that  which  filled  the  streets  of  Cairo  on  the  day  that 
Mustapha  Kamel's  body  was  carried  to  the  tomb. 
External  events  during  the  past  few  years  have  been 


CONCLUSIONS  291 

favourable  to  the  propaganda  of  the  Nationalists,  and 
have  done  something  to  counteract  the  weakness  they 
have  inflicted  on  their  own  cause  by  their  squabbles 
and  jealousies.  Egypt  has  felt  the  impact  of  the  wave 
which  has  rolled  through  all  the  eastern  world  since 
the  early  years  of  our  century.  With  Turkey,  Persia, 
India,  China,  stirred  by  new  ideas  and  strange  emotions, 
Egypt  can  hardly  remain  entirely  irresponsive.  She 
also  was  shaken  by  that  astounding  collapse  of  Russia 
before  Japan  which  came  like  the  blast  of  a  thunder- 
bolt —  like  a  new  revelation  from  the  Unseen  —  upon 
Africa  as  well  as  Asia.  'Throughout  the  whole  of  the 
Dark  Continent,*  wrote  the  late  Edward  Dicey,  who 
knew  Egypt  well,  seven  years  ago,  'from  Cairo  to 
the  Cape,  there  had,  in  the  course  of  the  last  century, 
grown  up  a  profound  conviction  that  in  any  conflict 
between  Europeans  and  natives  the  latter  were  bound 
to  come  to  grief  in  the  end.  This  belief  received  a  vio- 
lent shock  throughout  the  East  as  it  gradually  oozed 
out  that  Russia,  the  greatest  military  Power  in  Europe, 
had  been  signally  and  ignominiously  defeated  by  a 
native  Oriental  race.  I  do  not  suppose  that  one  Egyp- 
tian native  in  a  thousand  or  a  hundred  thousand  had 
any  conception  where  Japan  was,  who  the  Japanese 
were,  or  to  what  race  or  religion  they  belonged.  But 
all  over  Africa  —  north,  south,  west,  and  east  —  the 
tidings  of  Russia's  defeat  at  the  hands  of  a  coloured 
race  who,  whatever  else  they  might  be,  were  certainly 
not    Christians    or    whites,    spread    with    the    strange 


292  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

rapidity  with  which  news  in  the  East  passes  from  hand 
to  hand.  There  is  not  a  village  in  Egypt  in  which 
there  is  not  some  Mullah  or  Mahdi  or  holy  man, 
learned  in  the  Koran,  who  was  only  too  glad  to  announce 
to  his  adherents  that  the  downfall  of  the  infidel  was 
at  hand,  and  that  the  day  was  coming  when  Islam 
would  once  more  become  supreme.  The  Egyptians 
are  not  fanatical  Mohammedans,  but  they  are  fervent 
followers  of  the  Prophet,  and  they  are  convinced  that 
the  decline  of  the  Cross  is  certain  to  lead  to  the  rise  of 
the  Crescent.' 

While  this  disturbing  thought  was  still  fermenting 
in  the  native  mind,  there  came  the  Turkish  Revolution, 
the  rise  of  the  Young  Turks,  the  establishment  of 
parliamentary  institutions  under  the  very  shadow  of 
the  Calif's  throne.  All  things  considered,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  Egyptian  agitators  have  been  ac- 
tive during  the  past  decade,  nor  is  there  any  immedi- 
ate likelihood  that  this  activity  will  cease.  Fortu- 
nately, though  it  is  always  troublesome,  it  is  not  often 
dangerous,  and  its  least  perilous  phase  is  that  which 
shows  itself  among  the  articulate  sections  of  the  popu- 
lation —  the  middle  classes  and  professional  men  of 
the  towns. 

Nor  are  we  too  popular  with  another  large  and 
influential  class.  The  old  governing  element,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Turco-Egyptian  families,  the  sons  and 
grandsons  of  the  men  who  were  beys  and  pashas  under 
Ismail  and  Said,  are  hostile  to  the  Occupation,  though 


CONCLUSIONS  293 

they  may  not  deem  it  advisable  to  give  overt  expres- 
sion to  their  hostility.  These  persons  think  that  they 
would  have  much  to  gain  by  our  departure.  They 
would  once  more  become  a  ruling  aristocracy,  they 
would  'boss'  the  country,  get  the  good  places  into 
their  own  hands,  and  enjoy  that  outward  consideration 
which  goes  with  the  exercise  of  power  in  Oriental  lands. 
They  are  still  a  little  sulky  over  their  supersession, 
though  even  if  we  cleared  out,  bag  and  baggage,  they 
would  hardly  be  able  to  regain  their  old  predom- 
inance. 

But  what  of  the  peasantry,  the  real  people  of  Egypt  ? 
They  ought  to  be  grateful  to  us,  for  undoubtedly  we 
have  improved  their  lot  and  done  many  things  for 
them.  Thanks  to  the  English,  the  fellah  can  now  live 
at  peace  on  his  farm,  undisturbed  by  the  fear  of  a 
sudden  raid  from  tax-gatherers  or  marauding  pashas. 
The  land  tax  is  paid  according  to  a  regular  assessment, 
and  the  farmer  of  the  Delta  is  as  well  aware  of  the 
precise  nature  of  his  public  obligations  as  a  London 
ratepayer,  or  probably  better.  I  spent  some  days 
with  the  manager  of  a  branch  of  the  Agricultural  Bank, 
who  was  making  loans  to  the  peasants  on  mortgage, 
and  gathering  in  arrears  of  interest  due  from  them  ; 
and  I  was  interested  to  observe  how  accurately  in- 
formed these  people  were  as  to  their  financial  relations 
with  the  State.  Every  man  brought  with  him  his 
tax-sheet  and  assessment-paper,  and  knew  to  a  piastre 
how  much  his  land  was  worth,  and  how  much  he  would 


294  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

have  to  pay  on  it.  It  was  in  the  course  of  the  same 
journey  that  I  had  visible  proof  of  the  agrarian  prog- 
ress and  activity  which  prevail  under  the  shelter  of 
the  Occupation.  The  Egyptian  peasant  is  still  for 
the  most  part  a  poor,  hard-working  drudge ;  but  he 
is  no  longer  a  serf,  and  he  is  safe  from  administrative 
oppression  and  territorial  violence.  For  the  first 
time  in  his  history  he  knows  what  it  is  to  live  without 
the  kurbash  and  the  corvee  :  neither  money  nor  labour 
can  be  extorted  from  him  by  the  stick.  Above  all, 
he  has  his  water  supply  secure.  The  English  engineers 
have  poured  the  life-giving  fluid  through  the  canals, 
and  the  English  inspectors  of  the  Public  Works  Depart- 
ment see  that  the  tenant  obtains  his  fair  share  without 
having  to  bribe  officials  or  crave  favours  from  the 
hangers-on  of  the  local  magnate. 

But  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  the  English  re- 
ceive credit  for  these  reforms.  The  peasantry  have 
little  consciousness  of  the  part  we  play  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  country.  They  know  that  certain  officials 
come  among  them  from  time  to  time  who  treat  them 
with  more  humanity  and  justice  than  their  old  tyrants, 
and  they  are  probably  glad  that  the  Government  has 
chosen  to  employ  these  agents ;  but  their  recognition 
hardly  goes  beyond  this  point.  They  accept  good 
fortune  and  ill  with  the  same  Oriental  fatalism.  It  is 
the  will  of  Allah.  He  has  been  pleased  that  their 
crops  shall  increase  and  their  burdens  be  lightened, 
and  has  put  it  into  the  hearts  of  the  EfTendim  that 


CONCLUSIONS  295 

they  shall  no  longer  be  beaten  and  plundered.  Praise 
to  the  Most  Merciful.     His  will  be  done. 

To  tell  the  truth  I  believe  the  peasant  thinks  less  of 
the  reforms  than  of  the  grievances  under  which  he  still 
suffers,  or  believes  himself  to  suffer.  He  is  not,  perhaps, 
so  much  impressed  by  the  abolition  of  the  kurbash  as 
he  ought  to  be.  He  has  been  flogged  for  so  many 
centuries  that  he  has  got  used  to  the  process ;  that  was 
the  will  of  Allah  too.  In  a  country  where  a  gang  of 
labourers,  working  under  contract,  voluntarily  pay  a 
foreman  to  stand  over  them  with  a  stick  and  use  it 
freely  on  shirkers,  immunity  from  personal  chastise- 
ment is  not  highly  appreciated.  Besides,  the  present 
system  has  endured  long  enough  to  have  dimmed  the 
memory  of  past  evils.  The  confiscations,  the  oppres- 
sion, the  forced  contributions  of  the  old  days,  are  for- 
gotten by  the  younger  generation ;  which,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  its  own  tale  of  official  incompetence,  police 
corruption,  and  ineffective  administration  of  justice. 
I  have  dwelt  already  on  the  great  blot  on  our  adminis- 
tration, our  failure  to  suppress  disorder  in  the  country 
districts,  to  keep  violent  crime  within  limits,  and  to 
secure  the  conviction  of  offenders.  The  fellah  grum- 
bles at  these  troubles,  oblivious  of  the  grosser  wrongs 
from  which  his  fathers  suffered. 

For  these  and  other  reasons  we  have  little  gratitude 
to  expect  in  Egypt.  The  peasantry  do  not  know  us ; 
the  superior  classes  do  not  want  us.  Of  the  latter, 
many  who  admit  our  services  profess  that  they  were 


296  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

quite  able  to  accomplish  them  without  our  aid,  and 
that  a  native  Government,  purged  of  the  abuses  of  the 
old  Khediviate  —  intensified  as  these  were  by  the 
money  poured  into  Ismail's  lap  by  foreign  money- 
mongers  —  could  have  done  all  that  was  requisite ; 
and  could  have  done  it,  so  they  think,  without  intro- 
ducing those  Western  usages  and  innovations  which 
are  distasteful  to  Mussulman  sentiment.  Egypt,  it 
cannot  be  too  often  repeated,  is  a  Mohammedan 
country;  and  no  devout  Moslem  likes  to  be  ruled  by 
infidels. 

Even  the  slow-thinking  fellah  has  that  feeling ;  and 
there  are  those  who  make  it  their  business  to  stimulate 
it.  Mustapha  Kamel  worked  hard  to  excite  Mussul- 
man sentiment  in  the  villages  against  the  Christians. 
His  emissaries  did  what  they  could  to  push  the  Nation- 
alist agitation  among  the  peasantry,  and  his  successors 
have  made  some  efforts  in  the  same  direction.  The 
fellah  is  not  a  newspaper  reader ;  but  in  most  of  the 
villages  there  are  a  few  persons  —  headmen,  land  sur- 
veyors, Coptic  clerks,  schoolmasters  —  who  can  read, 
and  when  a  copy  of  the  provocative  Cairo  journal 
comes  into  the  place  its  inflammatory  contents  soon 
become  known.  Its  political  arguments  must  often 
be  above  the  heads  of  the  villagers.  But  its  appeals 
to  Moslem  passion  are  not.  The  fellah  is  a  devout 
Mohammedan  ;  to  him  his  religion  is  all  in  all ;  and 
though  at  present  he  seems  to  have  taken  the  National- 
ist agitation  calmly,  it  is  not  without  its  effect  upon 


CONCLUSIONS  297 

him.  The  perfervid  oratory  and  violent  journalism 
of  dissatisfied  townsmen  may  be  comparatively  harm- 
less. But  in  India  and  in  Russia  this  urban  rhetoric 
does  at  length  begin  to  sting  through  the  thick  hide 
of  the  peasant,  and  the  same  thing  may  happen  in 
Egypt.  I  do  not  know  how  far  my  informants  were 
correct  in  their  estimate  of  the  situation ;  but  I  was 
assured  by  some  who  are  closely  in  touch  with  native 
opinion  that  during  our  dispute  with  the  Porte  over 
the  Sinai  frontier  question  some  years  ago  popular 
feeling  in  the  villages  was  absolutely  on  the  side  of 
the  Turks.  If  it  had  come  to  war  —  as  it  very  nearly 
did  —  these  observers  were  convinced  that  there  would 
have  been  furious  anti-European  riots  in  the  towns  and 
outbreaks  among  the  fellahin.  There  is  a  deep-lying 
reservoir  of  Mohammedan  bigotry,  contemptuously 
acquiescent  in  the  presence  of  other  religions,  which 
yet,  under  conceivable  circumstances,  might  boil  up 
into  steaming  and  scorching  fanaticism. 

Islam  lies  at  the  base  of  Egyptian  society,  and  it  is 
on  the  future  of  Islam  that  the  future  of  Egypt  depends. 
For  let  us  make  no  mistake  on  one  vital  point :  we  are 
not  Christianising  the  East.  The  Mohammedan  world 
is  farther  from  conversion  to  the  faith  of  the  West  — 
for  my  part  I  believe  the  Buddhist  and  Brahman  world 
also  —  than  it  was  three  centuries,  or  even  ten  cen- 
turies, ago.  Indeed  one  may  say  that  in  the  continents 
of  the  brown  and  yellow  races  Christianity  has  been 
steadily  receding  for  over  a  thousand  years.     At  the 


298  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

beginning  of  the  Middle  Ages  it  did  indeed  seem  as  if 
all  the  world  were  likely  to  find  shelter  under  the  Cross 
of  Christ.  There  were  populous  Christian  communities 
throughout  Asia  Minor,  Persia,  Turkestan,  Thibet, 
China,  great  and  powerful  Christian  churches  spread 
over  North  Africa  and  Central  Africa  from  the  Medi- 
terranean to  the  Red  Sea  and  the  equatorial  regions. 
Except  for  a  few  anaemic  remnants  in  Abyssinia,  Syria, 
Armenia,  all  these  have  disappeared,  absorbed  by  Bud- 
dhism and  Brahmanism,  or  swept  out  by  the  conquering 
tide  of  Islam.  The  two  processes  are  in  operation 
still.  Japan,  which  almost  promised  to  become  a 
Christian  country  before  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
has  gone  back  to  the  old  gods  or  the  old  negations. 
If  Mohammedanism  is  ebbing  out  of  Europe,  it  is  on 
the  crest  of  the  advancing  wave  in  Africa,  where  its 
mullahs  are  making  converts  daily,  under  the  eyes  of 
our  officials  and  our  ineffectual  missionaries,  in  the 
British  territories  of  the  Atlantic  sea-board. 

Some  optimists  persuade  themselves  that  Orientals 
are  adopting  the  morality,  if  not  the  creed,  of  Christen- 
dom. That  seems  to  me  more  than  doubtful.  They 
are  assimilating  some  of  our  ideas  and  ideals,  but  these 
are  for  the  most  part  not  those  which  are  distinctively 
Christian.  It  is  the  common  experience  of  everybody, 
who  has  conversed  with  the  educated  native  from 
Tangier  to  Tokio,  that  this  person,  when  he  abandons 
the  orthodoxy  of  his  fathers,  does  not  accept  the  ortho- 
doxy of  his  teachers.     He  is  more  likely  to  turn  Atheist 


CONCLUSIONS  299 

or  Rationalist  than  Christian :  to  seek  refuge  in  a 
tangle  of  modern  Antinomianism  rather  than  to  recline 
upon  the  New  Testament  and  the  Church  Catechism. 
And  let  us  remember  that  the  Eastern  reformer  is  not 
always  the  shallow  creature,  with  a  simian  aptitude 
for  copying  the  tricks  and  habits  of  the  people  he  both 
hates  and  envies,  who  has  become  too  familiar  to  us 
in  the  facile  pages  of  hasty  travellers  and  ingenious 
writers  of  fiction.  The  East,  like  the  West,  has  its 
seekers  after  light,  its  thinkers  and  real  students,  who 
are  feeling  the  thrill  of  our  transitional  era,  and  search- 
ing for  some  solid  foothold  amid  the  floods  that  surge 
across  the  old  landmarks.  These  men  are  not  quite 
content  to  accept  ready-made  the  ethical  conventions, 
a  little  time-worn  and  travel-stained  among  ourselves, 
which  we  rather  contemptuously  fling  down  to  them. 
It  is  not  always  easy  to  meet  the  arguments  of  en- 
lightened, but  conservative,  Moslems  who  insist  that 
it  is  the  immorality,  rather  than  the  virtue,  of  the  West 
which  is  transmitted  to  the  East. 

'Our  ethical  system,'  an  intelligent  and  cultivated 
Mohammedan  might  say,  'is  not  perfect;  I  am  the 
first  to  admit  it.  Yet  we  taught  our  young  men  the 
Moslem  virtues  of  devotion,  gratitude,  filial  obedience, 
temperance,  hospitality,  and  courage.  What  do  you 
give  them  in  exchange  ?  A  faith  they  cannot  believe 
in,  for  they  know  you  daily  ignore  its  tenets  ;  a  code  of 
morals  which  has  not  prevented  your  own  societies 
from  being  the  battle-ground  of  the  animal  instincts 


3oo  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

and  the  predatory  passions.  If  our  cities  are  being 
sapped  by  drink  and  vice  it  is  because  they  are  too 
closely  imitating  your  own.  You  have  inflicted  upon 
us  the  horrible  curse  of  alcoholism,  from  which  the  East 
was  free ;  you  have  induced  our  youths  to  learn  your 
languages,  and  they  employ  their  knowledge  to  read 
the  pornographic  romances  of  the  boulevards.  You 
have  put  polygamy  out  of  fashion  with  the  wealthier 
classes  (it  never  was  the  fashion  with  the  poor),  and  you 
suppose  that  morality  is  the  gainer  when  the  Egyptian 
husband  supplements  his  single  Moslem  wife  with  a 
relay  of  female  companions,  drawn  from  the  pavements 
of  your  capitals  and  the  coulisses  of  your  music-halls. 
Islam  may  have  its  demerits ;  but  it  is  a  working  sys- 
tem of  religion  and  morals,  and  we  shall  do  wisely  to 
cling  to  it.' 

Cling  to  it,  wisely  or  not,  I  believe  they  will,  and  the 
reformers  of  the  East  must  make  their  account  with 
the  fact.  Can  Mohammedanism  reconcile  itself  with 
modern  progress  ?  There  are  those  who  persistently 
maintain  that  it  cannot.  'Islam,'  wrote  Sir  William 
Muir,  'never  changes;'  and  many  Anglo-Indians  and 
Anglo-Egyptians  agree  with  him.  There  are  said  to 
be  two  main  obstacles  —  the  Koran  and  the  seclusion 
of  women.  We  are  told  that  it  is  impossible  for  a 
society  to  be  progressive,  when  it  is  controlled  by  rules 
and  formularies,  laid  down  for  a  primitive  community 
twelve  centuries  ago,  and  fortified  by  all  the  sanctions 
of  religion.     The  argument  is  an  odd  one  in  the  mouths 


Sik  William  Wii.i.om  ks,   K.C.M.G. 


CONCLUSIONS  301 

of  persons  who  profess  to  regulate  their  own  lives  by  a 
Scripture  much  older  than  the  writings  of  Mohammed, 
and  promulgated  among  a  people  no  more  civilised  than 
the  Arabians  of  the  Prophet.  If  the  Bible  is  no  impedi- 
ment to  electric  tramcars,  steam  turbines,  representative 
government,  joint  stock  companies,  and  university 
extension  lectures,  perhaps  the  Koran  need  not  bar  the 
way  to  these  improvements  either.  If  the  Moslem 
reformers  are  in  earnest,  they  will,  no  doubt,  prevail 
on  the  ulema  to  interpret  the  sacred  texts  in  a  favour- 
able sense.  A  priesthood,  which  could  not  stretch 
the  articles  of  its  religion  so  as  to  cover  the  require- 
ments of  contemporaneous  society,  would  be  singularly 
deficient  in  the  ecclesiastical  instinct. 

On  the  other  question  —  the  woman  question  —  one 
must  not  dogmatise.  None  of  us  know  much  about 
it  in  its  Eastern  application.  Some  of  those  who  know 
least  are  the  foremost  in  denouncing  the  harem  as  the 
blight  of  Oriental  society,  the  fatal  influence  that  nega- 
tives all  genuine  progress.  But  it  is  an  institution 
which  has  existed  for  many  centuries,  which  fits  with- 
out friction  into  the  conditions  of  Eastern  life,  which 
has  been  approved  by  both  sexes  in  the  countries  where 
it  is  practised ;  and,  at  least  it  relieves  them  from 
some  of  the  miseries  and  failures  rampant  elsewhere. 

I  can  conceive  that  my  educated,  conservative  Mus- 
sulman might  have  a  few  further  remarks  to  make  on 
this  subject.  'You  are  good  enough  to  inform  us/ 
he  might  observe,  'that  our  family  life,  based  as  it  is 


302  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

on  the  seclusion  and  segregation  of  women,  and  recog- 
nising, under  very  strict  legal  and  social  regulation, 
polygamous  marriage,  is  unsatisfactory.  Possibly. 
Neither  polygamy  nor  the  harem  is  enjoined  by  our 
religion,  and  for  them  we  do  not  seek  our  warrant  in 
the  Koran.  They  have  established  themselves  through 
the  practice  and  custom  of  the  ages  in  most  Oriental 
countries ;  but  I  do  not  deny  that  we  may  find  them, 
like  many  other  ancient  Eastern  usages,  unsuited  to 
modern  conditions.  How  they  can  best  be  modified 
is  a  matter  many  of  us  are  gravely  considering.  But 
will  you  excuse  me,  if  I  venture  to  suggest  that  we  are 
by  no  means  disposed  to  accept  you,  without  further 
question,  as  authoritative  mentors  in  this  branch  of 
study  ?  For,  so  far  as  we  can  gather,  you  have  made 
rather  a  squalid  muddle,  not  unmixed  with  sordid 
tragedy,  of  the  sexual  relations  in  your  own  enlightened 
and  progressive  communities.  Are  your  marriages 
universally,  or  even  in  a  great  majority  of  instances, 
tranquil  and  happy  ?  Are  your  husbands  always 
faithful  ?  Are  your  wives  invariably  contented  ? 
Have  you,  any  more  than  ourselves,  been  completely 
successful  in  "subduing  to  the  useful  and  the  good" 
those  individual  passions,  and  overpowering  emotions, 
which  Nature  has  sown  in  the  human  soul  and  body  ? 

'  On  these  points  we  have  our  doubts.  We  read 
your  newspapers,  your  fiction,  your  dramatists,  and  we 
learn  that  your  society  is  racked  by  sexual  unrest,  and 
perturbed    by   the    most   horrible    sexual    immorality, 


CONCLUSIONS  303 

which  you  vainly  strive  to  keep  in  check  by  ferocious, 
but  apparently  ineffectual,  penal  laws.  You  suppress 
black  slavery  in  the  East  and  are  struggling  with  what 
you  call  white  slavery  in  the  West,  a  degradation  which 
your  agents  have  even  introduced  among  ourselves.1 
Your  matrimonial  arrangements  work  so  badly  that 
your  men,  it  seems,  take  refuge  in  licentiousness,  and 
your  women  are  in  revolt.  And  with  it  all  we  discover 
that  you  are  threatened  by  "race  suicide,"  and  that 
your  system  does  not  even  provide  (as  ours  does) 
that  practically  every  woman  shall  have  a  secure  place 
found  for  her  in  the  world,  and  shall  not  miss  the 
opportunity  to  fulfil  her  primary  vocation  of  mother- 
hood. Have  we,  then,  much  to  gain  in  all  these  matters 
by  adopting  your  codes  and  your  creeds,  or  by  hastily 
assimilating  the  methods  in  which  so  many  among 
yourselves  have  lost  confidence  ?  If  we  must  change 
our  own  social  and  domestic  system,  it  is  not  clear  to 
some  of  us  that  we  are  compelled  to  replace  it  by  yours, 
or  that  we  should  be  wise  in  doing  so.' 

As  a  matter  of  fact  you  have  only  to  walk  through  a 
street  in  Cairo  to  see  that  there  are  plenty  of  ladies  in 
Egypt  who  are  evidently  allowed,  or  who  allow  them- 
selves, a  personal  freedom  not  often  extended  to  their 
well-to-do  sisters  in  other  Mohammedan  countries. 
The  Egyptian  veil  seems  in  a  metaphorical,  as  well  as 
a  literal,  sense  a  much  more  transparent  vestment  than 

1  See  the  passage  from  Lord  Kitchener's  Report  quoted  above  (chapter 
xxvii,  p.  248). 


304  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

the  Indian  purdah.  But  on  the  other  hand  one  some- 
times hears  that  the  movement  for  the  emancipation  of 
married  women  has  little  vitality,  except  among  the 
reformers  and  the  small  Europeanising  'smart  set' 
of  the  capital.  Some  of  the  ladies  reject  the  veil  and 
the  separate  female  apartments,  receive  masculine 
visitors  in  their  family  circle,  wear  European  dresses, 
and  accompany  their  husbands  to  Paris  or  Mentone. 
But  I  believe  the  whole  number  of  these  vindicators 
of  women's  rights  is  still  very  limited,  and  the  example, 
in  spite  of  the  impulse  given  by  the  princesses  of  the 
Khedivial  family,  is  not  being  followed  to  any  consid- 
erable extent.  One  hears  of  cases  of  well-born  and 
highly  cultured  Moslem  ladies  who,  after  some  experi- 
ence of  emancipation  and  intercourse  in  the  Western 
fashion,  have  voluntarily  and  deliberately  returned  to 
the  seclusion  of  the  zenana.  One  lady  who  has  done 
so  I  know,  and  I  have  spoken  with,  though  I  have 
never  seen,  her.  She  is  the  wife  of  an  accomplished 
scholar,  and  might  herself  claim  that  title,  having 
studied  not  only  English  and  French  literature  but  also 
Egyptian  antiquities  and  archaeology.  For  some  years 
she  mingled  freely  in  the  most  cultivated  foreign  so- 
ciety of  the  capital.  Now  she  has  thought  it  right  to 
resume  the  habits  of  her  people.  She  passes  her  days 
in  her  own  apartments,  and  only  leaves  them  to  drive 
out,  closely  veiled,  in  her  carriage.  But  occasionally 
she  will  converse  on  the  subjects  which  interest  her 
with  an  English  professor  or  learned  official  or  some 


CONCLUSIONS  305 

other  foreign  gentleman  —  through  the  telephone ! 
Thus  do  science  and  Moslem  convention  work  com- 
fortably together. 

If  the  status  of  the  Egyptian  woman  of  the  middle 
and  well-to-do  classes  is  to  be  changed,  the  most 
efficient  factor  will  be  the  spread  of  female  education. 
There  is  a  growing  interest  in  this  subject  in  the  coun- 
try. 'There  is  probably  nothing  more  remarkable 
in  the  social  history  of  Egypt  during  the  last  dozen 
years  than  the  growth  of  opinion  among  all  classes  of 
Egyptians  in  favour  of  the  education  of  their  daughters. 
The  girls'  schools  belonging  to  the  Ministry  of  Educa- 
tion are  crowded,  and  to  meet  the  growing  demand  sites 
have  been  acquired  and  fresh  schools  are  to  be  con- 
structed, one  in  Alexandria  and  two  in  Cairo.  Very 
many  applications  for  admission  have,  however,  to  be 
refused.  The  Provincial  Councils  have  during  the 
past  year  done  something  to  remedy  this  deficiency. 
Girls'  schools  have  been  opened  by  the  Councils  in 
five  mudirias,  and  in  other  cases  private  girls'  schools 
have  been  taken  over.  The  increase  in  the  schools 
directed  by  the  Education  Department,  and  the 
activity  of  the  local  educational  authorities  in  the  same 
direction,  have  revealed  the  fact  that  the  supply  of 
trained  female  teachers  is  entirely  inadequate.  The 
Sania  Training  College  was  founded  in  1900  to  meet 
this  need,  and  twenty-eight  girl  students  are  at  present 
in  attendance  there.  Several  also  have  been  sent  to 
England   for  professional   training.     At   present,   how- 


3o6  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

ever,  it  is  clear  that  neither  the  Training  College  nor 
the  Educational  Mission  is  able  to  provide  the  number 
of  teachers  required,  and  it  can  only  be  hoped  that  the 
increase  of  the  facilities  for  primary  instruction  for 
girls  will  enlarge  the  field  of  recruitment  for  this 
purpose.  In  the  case  of  elementary  vernacular  educa- 
tion, again,  the  desire  to  secure  this  instruction  for 
girls  has  completely  outrun  the  possibility  of  provid- 
ing adequate  accommodation.'  x 

A  growing  desire  is  manifest  among  Moslem  parents 
to  have  their  daughters  educated  ;  they  are  clamouring 
for  more  primary  schools,  and  they  even  send  their 
girls  to  be  taught  by  Coptic  priests  and  American 
missionaries  rather  than  that  they  should  not  be  taught 
at  all.  There  is  a  famous  private  school  in  Cairo, 
under  an  English  headmistress,  where  hundreds  of 
Mohammedan  young  ladies  are  brought  up  precisely 
as  high-school  girls  are  in  England,  no  whit  less  alert, 
as  intelligent,  and  as  eagerly  interested  in  their  studies. 
The  great  want  is  that  of  qualified  native  teachers  ; 

1  Egypt,  No.  i  (19 1 2),  p.  25.  In  the  Report  for  the  following  year, 
Egypt,  No.  1  (1913),  we  read:  — 

'The  demand  for  girls'  schools  in  Egypt  shows  no  tendency  to  decrease. 
Reference  was  made  in  last  year's  report  to  the  want  of  suitable  accommodation 
and  properly  qualified  teachers,  which  makes  it  difficult  to  keep  pace  with 
this  growing  movement.  Some  progress  has  been  made  in  the  past  year. 
The  Sania  and  Abbas  Primary  Schools  for  girls  contain  461  pupils.  Both  are 
full,  and  unable  to  meet  a  constantly  increasing  demand  for  admission. 
The  attendance  at  the  Sania  Training  College  increased  in  1912,  and  several 
Egyptian  girl  students,  as  in  previous  years,  have  been  sent  to  England  to 
complete  their  professional  training,  but  further  provision  for  the  training  of 
Egyptian  women  teachers  appears  to  be  very  necessary.' 


CONCLUSIONS  307 

and  here  the  Ministry  of  Education,  under  its  late  ca- 
pable chief,  Zaghlul  Pasha,  set  the  good  precedent  of 
picking  out  promising  female  pupils  from  the  second- 
ary schools  and  sending  them  to  be  trained  in  England. 
The  difficulty,  as  his  Excellency  rather  mournfully 
explained  to  me,  is  that  marriage  is  still  the  only  recog- 
nised profession  for  women  in  the  East ;  and  there 
will  be  little  hope  of  keeping  the  young  preceptresses 
at  their  work  beyond  the  age  of  twenty-two  or  twenty- 
three.  One  of  these  prize  pupils,  I  was  told,  on  passing 
her  examination  and  obtaining  a  Government  nomina- 
tion, immediately  received  no  fewer  than  seventeen 
offers  of  marriage,  which  shows  at  least  that  the 
Egyptian  bridegroom  does  not  despise  feminine  cult- 
ure. But  one  wonders  how  an  educated  young  woman 
will  contrive  to  settle  down  to  matrimonial  immure- 
ment after  her  year  or  two  spent  at  a  training  college 
or  a  university  in  England. 

Feminine  education,  as  well  as  technical  and  agri- 
cultural education,  the  British  Agent  and  the  advisers 
of  the  Ministers  are  doing  their  best  to  encourage. 
Literary  culture  on  Western  lines  is  regarded  rather 
coldly ;  it  is  felt  that  Egypt  is  likely  to  get  quite  as 
many  educated  young  gentlemen,  with  the  latest  im- 
ported ideas,  as  it  will  require,  without  much  official 
assistance.  Of  journalists,  lawyers,  candidates  for 
government  employment,  it  needs  only  a  moderate 
supply.  What  it  does  want  are  trained  native  doctors, 
architects,  engineers,  estate  managers,  surveyors,  men 


308  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

of  business  generally,  and  students  properly  prepared 
for  industrial  and  commercial  pursuits.  And  these 
the  technical  schools  and  colleges  are  gradually  fur- 
nishing. In  this  way  we  may  produce  some  effect 
on  the  intellectual  movement,  and  the  attitude  of  those 
who  will  give  it  shape  in  the  future,  as  well  as  upon  the 
economic  progress  of  the  country. 

But  with  the  possible  awakening  of  Islam,  with  the 
social  and  ethical  consequences  of  the  dynamic  change 
that  is  passing  through  the  Eastern  mind,  we  have  little 
direct  concern.  Egypt,  like  other  Oriental  lands,  will 
in  due  course  try  to  work  out  its  own  salvation,  per- 
haps in  unison  with  the  West,  quite  possibly  by  shap- 
ing a  different  synthesis  for  itself.  We  may  have  to 
abandon  our  conception  of  the  huge,  somnolent,  amor- 
phous Orient,  waiting  passively  for  the  West  to  stamp 
the  impress  of  its  vitalising  energy  upon  the  lethargic 
bulk.     It  is  a  favourite  literary  tradition  : 

The  East  bowed  low  before  the  blast, 

In  patient,  deep  disdain, 
She  heard  the  legions  thunder  past, 

And  plunged  in  dreams  again. 

Did  she  ?  At  any  rate  the  East  seems  more  inclined 
for  action  than  dreaming  just  now.  She  is  clearing 
the  mists  of  sleep  from  her  eyes,  and  is  showing  a 
tendency  to  be  self-assertive,  practical,  and  indepen- 
dently constructive.  The  East  may  take  over  from 
us  various  external  forms  and  material  appendages, 
such    as    parliaments,    military    tactics,    super-Dread- 


CONCLUSIONS  309 

noughts,  and  bowler  hats,  without  necessarily  assimi- 
lating our  spirit,  our  morals,  or  our  view  of  life.  It  was 
our  teacher  before,  and  it  may  have  much  to  teach  us 
again,  even  in  the  purely  scientific  sphere,  when  it 
has  learnt  from  us  the  grammar  and  the  alphabet 
of  modern  knowledge. 

Meanwhile,  and  without  prejudice  to  the  ultimate 
results,  we  have  a  task  to  perform  in  Egypt  which  will 
not  be  completely  fulfilled  for  many  years  to  come. 
Quietly  and  steadily,  and  with  as  little  interference  as 
possible  from  outside,  we  must  go  on  doing  our  duty  as 
we  have  done  it  throughout  the  Occupation  period, 
making  the  best  of  the  country  and  the  people,  eco- 
nomically and  otherwise,  according  to  our  lights. 
Our  lights  may  not  be  those  of  our  clients,  they  may 
even  sometimes  be  a  little  dim  and  flickering  for  our- 
selves ;  but,  such  as  they  are,  we  must  steer  by  them, 
not  expecting  any  particular  gratitude,  understanding 
that  we  are  not  popular,  but  steadfastly  discharging 
an  obligation  we  cannot  as  yet  abandon. 

That  we  shall  be  relieved  of  it  some  time  has  been 
the  conviction  of  Lord  Cromer  and  the  other  men  who 
have  been  engaged  with  him  in  the  reconstruction  of 
Egypt.  But  they  are  equally  convinced  that  the 
period  of  our  release  is  far  distant.  The  habits  and 
traditions  of  centuries  arc  not  changed  in  a  few  years  ; 
and  it  must  be  long  before  Egypt  is  adapted  for  that 
self-government,  combined  with  freedom  from  foreign 
dictation,  for  which  we  have  been  preparing  her. 


3io  EGYPT    IN    TRANSITION 

The  preparation  may  take  a  slightly  different  form 
in  the  near  future.  We  have  made  mistakes,  and  have 
learnt  lessons  from  experience ;  and  we  may  antici- 
pate that  the  system  will  undergo  some  important 
modifications,  tending  generally,  I  imagine,  in  the 
direction  of  associating  competent  natives  more  closely 
with  the  responsible  business  of  administration  in  all 
departments.  But,  in  the  main,  the  system  will  be 
retained,  and  it  will  be  animated,  one  may  hope,  with 
the  same  spirit  of  integrity,  self-sacrifice,  and  zeal  for 
the  public  benefit,  which  has  rendered  the  British 
Occupation  of  Egypt  the  most  honourable  episode  in 
the  recent  history  of  our  race.  It  has  been  a  difficult 
experiment,  which  seemed  foredoomed  to  failure ;  it 
is  creditable  to  many  Englishmen  and  some  Egyptians 
that  it  has  been,  on  the  whole,  a  success. 


INDEX 


Abbas  Hilmi  Pasha,  Khedive  of 
Egypt,  his  attempt  to  reform 
system  of  education  in  University 
of  El-Azhar,  210;  State  recep- 
tions held  by,  212;  he  remains 
nominally  the  supreme  power  in 
Egypt,  215,  seq. ;  character  of, 
219;  abortive  assassination  plot 
against,  258 

Abu  Hamed,  7,  8,  10;  station  of, 
40,  71 

'Advisers'  British,  Report  on  prisons, 
247 ;  suggested  reform  of  mixed 
Courts,  by,  219,  275,  seq. ;  duties 
of,  220 

Agitators,    Lord    Kitchener,    on,    258 

Agricultural  Bank,  working  of,  293 

Ahmed,  Mohammed.     See  Mahdi. 

Amenophis  II.,  tomb  of,  166 

'Anglo- Egyptian  Sudan,'  its  polit- 
ical position,  5,  149;  and  see 
Sudan. 

Army,  Egyptian;  Sudanese  regi- 
ments of,  51 ;  conscription  in, 
54;  10th  Sudanese  inspected, 
86;  theoretically  part  of  Turkish 
forces,  214 

'Army  of  Occupation,'  British, 
53;     Kasr-en-Nil    barracks    of,    173 

Arabi  Pasha,  216,  217 

Assiut,  barrage  at,  143 

Assuan  dam,  135;  cost  of,  144; 
original  designs  for,  modified 
to  save  temples  at  Phila:,  144; 
begun  in  1898,  completed,  1902, 
147 ;  its  length  and  storage  capacity, 
147;  additions  to,  1007-1912,  149^ 

Atbara,  bridge  over  the,  8,  71,  95; 
cotton  land,  121 


Baker,  Sir  Benjamin,  his  schemes 
for  Nile  irrigation,  140;  his  ap- 
pointment on  Sir  Colin  Scott- 
Moncrieff's  Commission,  1890, 
143 ;  modification  of  his  design 
for  Assuan  dam,  144 

Berber,  8,  59,  95,  121 

Bernard,  Col.  E.  E.,  Financial 
Secretary  to  Sudan  Government,  55 

Blue  Nile.    See  Nile. 

Blue  Nile  Province,  69 

Boutros  Pasha,  murder  of,  257,  288 

Cabinet  Ministers,  position  of, 
267,  268 

Cairo,  Egyptian  War  Office  in,  53 ; 
climate  of,  158,  169;  shops  in, 
160;  museum  in,  168;  first  im- 
pressions of,  169;  French  in- 
fluence on,  1 69-1 7 1 ;  citadel 
of,  176;  mosques  of,  176;  its 
position  as  the  seat  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  El-Azhar,  202 ;  school 
for  girls  in,  306 

Capitulations,  the;  not  in  force 
in  the  Sudan,  52;  hampering 
effect  of,  in  Egypt,  276;  advan- 
tages of,  before  the  Occupation, 
277,  278;  necessity  for  their  modi- 
fication to  suit  modern  require- 
ments, 280 

Cassel,  Sir  Ernest,  144 

Christianity,  efforts  at  conversion 
of  Mohammedans  forbidden  in 
most  parts  of  the  Sudan,  64,  65 ; 
its  waning  power  in  the  East,  66,  297 

Condominium,  Anglo-Egyptian,  5,  25, 
52 

Consular  Courts,  276-279 


3" 


312 


INDEX 


Cook,  Thomas,  pioneer  of  Egyptian 
tourist-travel,  155 

Copts,  their  employment  in  Sudan 
Government  Offices,  25 ;  their 
clerical  employment  in  Cairo, 
169,  174;  their  character  and 
origin,  225;  their  representation 
in  the  Legislative  Assembly,  267 

Corvee,  141,  186 

Cotton,  its  cultivation  in  the  Sudan, 
120,  i2i ;  crop  on  Zeidab  Estate, 
127;  Egypt's  contribution  to  the 
world's  supply  of,  140;  official 
markets  for  sale  of,  262 

Crime,  frequency  of,  242 ;  increase 
of,  244;  Eastern  attitude  towards, 
248;  old  and  new  methods  for 
punishment  of,  251 

Cromer,  Earl  of,  his  release  of  Zubeir, 
60;  he  opens  Nile-Red-Sea  Rail- 
way, 1906,  93 ;  his  abolition  of  the 
corvie,  186;  his  opinion  of  British 
policy  in  Egypt,  217;  his  great 
achievements  in  the  early  days  of 
the  Occupation,  218;  his  later  policy, 
241 ;  his  opinion  on  the  Capitu- 
lations in  Egypt,  280  n. ;  and  on 
the  possible  abandonment  of  the 
Occupation,  309 

Delta,  the,  72 ;  British  element 
in,  180;  climate  of,  181;  neces- 
sity of  drainage,  185;  the  Delta 
farmer,  189;  inadequate  punish- 
ment of  crime  in,  242,  seq. 

Dual  Control,  234 

Dufferin,  Marquess  of,  his  Report,  266 

Education;  Lord  Kitchener's  first 
educational  efforts  in  the  Sudan, 
25;  Gordon  College  and  its  aims, 
26,  28;  University  of  El-Azhar, 
202,  seq. ;  institution  of  New  Uni- 
versity College,  Cairo,  202 ;  anti- 
quated system  of,  at  El-Azhar, 
208,  209 ;  Minister  of,  210 ;  New 
law  promulgated  in  191 1,  to  en- 
large syllabus  at  El-Azhar,   211 

El-Azhar,  university  of,  202 ;  cos- 
mopolitan    constituency     of,     203; 


expenses  of  the  establishment 
met  by  the  Administration  des 
Wakfs,  205 ;  its  antiquated  sys- 
tem of  education,  207 ;  syllabus 
enlarged,  191 1,  191 2,  211 

Fellahin,  54;  their  attempts  to 
evade  conscription,  80;  physique 
of,  81 ;  description  of,  in  the  Delta, 
180,  185;  their  aversion  from  in- 
novations, 188;  their  tendency  to 
hoard  money,  189,  190;  Lord  Kitch- 
ener's interest  in,  261 ;  their 
indebtedness  to  English  rule  not 
acknowledged,  293,  seq. ;  influence 
of  Nationalist  agitators  among,  296, 
297 ;  religious  feeling  of,  296 ;  their 
sympathy  with  Turks,  297 

Five  Feddans  Law,  enactment  of, 
189;  its  operation  dependent  on 
Mixed  Legislative  Council,  272 

Flogging,  daily  practice  of,  under 
Abdullah,  36;  indifference  of  the 
fellahin  towards,  295 ;  abolition  of, 
in  prisons,  247 ;  abolition  of  the 
kurbash,  190,  294 

Garstin,  Sir  William,  his  opinion 
on  wheat  and  cotton  crops,  120,  121 ; 
his  irrigation  schemes,  134,  140; 
modification  of  his  original  de- 
signs for  Assuan  dam,  to  save 
temples  of  Phils,  144;  his  further 
irrigation  schemes,  151;  his  pro- 
ject for  diverting  the  course  of 
the  Nile  from  the   Sudd  regions,  151 

General  Assembly,  the  scope  and 
policy  of,  266;  its  reappearance 
as  the  Legislative  Assembly  under 
the  New  Organic  Law,  1913,  266; 
its  restrictions,  270,  272,  seq. 

Ghedit,  Sir  Reginald  Wingate's 
victory  over  the  Khalifa  at,  47 

Ghezireh,  173 

Gordon,  Charles  George,  attempt  to 
rescue  him,  11;  memorial  to,  16; 
death  of,  17,  59,  60;  his  crusade 
against  slavery,  68 

Gordon  College,  Khartum,  26; 
aims  and  methods  of,   28,   54,   64 


INDEX 


313 


Gorst,  Sir  Eldon,  his  report  on  Nile- 
Red-Sea  Railway,  93;  his  suc- 
cession to  Lord  Cromer,  as  British 
Agent,  93 ;  his  real  and  nominal 
position,  213;  misinterpretation  of 
his  attitude  by  Nationalists,    257 

Halakas,  or  official  cotton-markets, 
institution  of,  262 ;  description  of, 
263 

Haifa.     See  Wady  Haifa. 

Herodotus,  the  first  special  corre- 
spondent on  the  Nile,   155 

Hills  of  the  Dead,  sterility  and 
solitude  of,  165 ;  Tombs  of  the 
Kings,  166,  167 

Inspectors,  British,  attached  to 
Ministry  of  Interior  and  Ministry 
of  Finance,  224;  functions  of,  233; 
nomination  of,  235 ;  some  diffi- 
culties experienced  by,  236,  seq. 

Irrigation,  allotment  of  perennial 
water,  123;  pumping  apparatus 
at  Zeidab,  126;  antiquity  of  basin 
irrigation,  133;  use  of  Nilometers, 
137;  basin  irrigation  superseded 
by  perennial  irrigation,  139;  canals, 
chains  and  barrages,  142 ;  Assuan 
dam,  144 ;  completion  of  Assuan 
dam  in  1902,  147;  antiquity  of 
bucket  and  lever,  water-wheel  and 
hand-pump,  148;  advantages  of 
perennial  irrigation,  185;  its  abuse 
by  the  fellahin,  261 

Ismail  Pasha,  Khedive,  oppressive 
rule  of,  so ;  his  preference  for 
French  officials,  234 ;  his  extrav- 
agance and  extortion,   254 

Kasif.l,  Mustapha,  death  of,  289; 
attacks  on  Fnglish  officials,  289, 
290;  his  agitations  in  the  villages, 
296 

Karnak,  162,  seq. 

Kerr6ri,    Battle    of.     See    Omdurman. 

Khalifa,  the  (Abdullah),  io,  31, 
32;  his  house  and  enclosure  in 
Omdurman,  i.i,,  35  ;   his  death,  48,  66 

Khedive,  position  of,  52 


Khedives.  See  Abbas,  Ismail,  Said, 
Tewfik. 

Khartum,  romance  of,  9,  n;  its 
foundation,  destruction,  growth, 
trade,    18,   seq. ;    its  climate,   40 

Kitchener  of  Khartum,  Viscount, 
his  expedition  to  the  Sudan  in  1898, 
7;  his  entry  into  Khartum,  19; 
his  educational  projects  in  the 
Sudan,  25 ;  his  destruction  of  the 
Mahdi's  tomb,  34;  his  treatment 
of  the  religious  question,  64;  his 
new  Five  Feddans  Law,  189;  his 
campaigns  in  1897,  194;  his  re- 
port on  El-Azhar,  in  191 2,  211; 
his  endeavours  to  supplement  police 
force  in  the  Delta,  244;  his  report, 
'Egypt,  No.  N  3  (1913),'  255,  seq.  ; 
his  appointment  to  British  Agency, 
191 1,  256,  258;  plot  to  murder 
him,  258;  his  report  on  Nationalist 
agitations,  191 2,  260;  his  interest 
in  the  fellahin,  261 ;  his  reform  of 
the  Legislative  Assembly,  267 ;  his 
account  of  progress  in  the  Sudan, 
284 

Kom  Ombo,  126 

Kordofan,  province  of,  70 

Kurbash,  190,  294 

Legislative  Assembly,  election 
to,  266,  267 ;  restricted  powers 
of,    267.     (See    General    Assembly.) 

Legislative  Council,  constitution 
of,     266.     (See    General    Assembly.) 

Luxor,  climate  of,  158,  162;  ruins 
and  monuments  at,  162,  163;  situa- 
tion of,  164 

Mahdi,  the  (Mohammed  Ahmed), 
12,  15;  his  order  to  spare  Gordon 
disobeyed,  17;  his  destruction  of 
Khartum,  19;  his  capture  of  Father 
Ohrwalder,  33;  his  tomb  in  Om- 
durman, 34;    his  Puritanism.  82 

Mehemet  Ali,  12;  his  foundation 
of  Khartum,  19;  conquests  of, 
58;  founder  of  modern  Egypt, 
138;  initiator  of  system  of  peren- 
nial irrigation,  142  ;    mosque  of,  176 


3H 


INDEX 


Meroe  and  Merowi,  pyramids  and 
temples  at,  71 

Metemmeh,  massacre  at,  128 

Mixed  Tribunals,  established  1876, 
270;  authority  over  Egyptian  legis- 
lation of,  271;  unsatisfactory  con- 
ditions of,  274;  their  abolition 
suggested,  280 

Mudir,  position  of,  52;  military 
status  of,  in  the  Sudan,  88;  na- 
tionality of,  in  the  provinces,  224; 
responsibilities  of,  in  the  provinces, 
238,  247;  local  importance  of, 
238 

Murders,  frequency  of,  242 ;  large 
proportion  unpunished,  243 ;  in- 
adequate causes  for,  243 ;  increase 
of,  in  Cairo,  244 ;  difficulty  of  ob- 
taining  convictions   for,    249 

Mohammedanism,  its  prevalence  in 
the  Sudan,  and  the  deference  paid 
to  its  observances  by  British  officials, 
62,  seq. ;  its  former  attitude  towards 
Christians,  276;  its  influence  over 
the  peasantry,  296,  297 ;  its  in- 
creasing power  in  the  East,  298; 
its  ethical  system,  299 ;  its  effect 
on  progress,  300;  its  matrimonial 
system,  301 

Nationalist  agitations,  attitude  of 
Sir  Eldon  Gorst  and  Lord  Kitch- 
ener towards,  257,  seq. ;  plots 
and  murders  connected  with,  287, 
288;  death  of  ablest  leader  of, 
Mustapha  Kamel  Pasha,  289,  290; 
influence  on  the  peasantry,  296 

Nile,  prior  claim  of  Egypt  over  the 
Sudan,  to  its  waters,  123;  canals, 
125,  126;  its  supreme  importance 
to  Egypt,  132,  seq. ;  its  source, 
134;  basin  irrigation  now  obsolete, 
142 ;  barrages  and  dams,  142,  144, 
146;  navigation  of,  147;  clearance 
of  sudd  and  a  use  found  for  the 
refuse,  150;  its  whole  length  laid 
open,  150 

Nile,  Blue,  its  junction  with  the  White 
Nile  at  Khartum,  21,  135;  tides  of, 
135.  136 


Nile,    White,    its    junction    with    the 

Blue  Nile  at  Khartum,   21 ;    source 

of,  134- 
Nilometers,  137 
Nubar     Pasha,     political     ability     of, 

222,231;      his     institution     of     the 

Mixed  Tribunals,  270 

Ohrwalder,  Father,  33 

Omdurman,  town  of,  transmutation 
of,  31;  area  and  population,  31; 
its  market  and  cotton  mills,  36,  37 

Omdurman,  battle  of,  13 

Organic  Law  of  1913,  new  consti- 
tutional system  promulgated  by  the, 
265 

Phiue,  temples  of,  1 ;  agitation 
against  their  submersion  by  the 
erection  of  the  Assuan  dam,   144 

Police  force,  inadequacy  of,  244,  246; 
necessity  of  extra  police-tax,  249; 
restrictions  on,  imposed  by  Capitu- 
lations, 278 

Port  Sudan,  opening  of  Nile-Red- 
Sea  Railway  at,  93 ;  rapid  growth 
of,  94 ;  harbour  of,  96 ;  construc- 
tion of,  97;  imports  and  exports 
of,  99 ;  climate  of,  101 ;  buildings 
of,  109 

Provincial  Councils,  305 

Pyramids,  the  great,  177,  178 

Pyramids  at  Merowi,  71 

Public  Works  Department,  adminis- 
trators of,  134;  engineers  of,  139; 
English  inspection  of,  294;  advan- 
tages of,  to  the  fellah,  186 

Railways,  69,  seq. ;  opening  of  Nile- 
Red-Sea  Railway,  93 ;  Suakin-Ber- 
ber  Railway  project,  95,  98;  their 
public  ownership  in  Sudan,   105 

Riaz  Pasha,   race  and  ability  of,    231 

Said  Pasha,  Khedive,  father  of 
Ismail,  182 

Scott-Moncrieff,  Sir  Colin,  his  ser- 
vices in  the  Egyptian  Public  Works 
Department  to  further  Nile  irriga- 
tion, 134;  his  adaptation  of  Mougel's 


INDEX 


3i5 


barrage,  142;  his  commission  in 
1800,  143;  his  services,  218;  his 
irrigation   schemes  attacked,    ago 

Slatin   Pasha,   Sir  Rudolf  von,   33 

Slaves,  import  and  export  of,  pro- 
hibited in  the  Sudan,  52;  manu- 
mission of,  66;  special  department 
to   control   trade   in,    66 

Strabo,  in  Egypt,  15s 

Sudan,  conquest  of,  2 ;  under  two 
flags,  xiv,  4 ;  its  area,  fertility, 
population,  6;  its  possibilities 
of  development,  6;  character- 
istics of  natives,  23,  seq. ;  gov- 
ernment of,  50;  its  division  into 
fourteen  provinces,  52;  its  revenue, 
55  ;  religious  observances  in,  62,  seq. ; 
slave  trade  in,  66;  its  three  chief 
requirements,  68;  irrigation  of,  72; 
need  of  labourers  in,  72;  physique 
of  natives  compared  with  Egyptians, 
81;  musical  taste  of  natives,  82; 
wives  of  native  soldiers,  84,  seq. ; 
first  Government  of,  87,  seq. ;  Civil 
Service,  88,  seq. ;  Civil  Service, 
genesis  of,  xv ;  train-service  of, 
98 ;  state  socialism  in,  103,  seq. ; 
its  control  of  the  irrigation  of  Egypt, 
132;  its  virtual  position  as  a  British 
dominion,  225;  Lord  Kitchener  on 
increased  prosperity  of,   284 

Sudd,  135;  use  discovered  for,  150 

Tewfik  Pasha,  Khedive,  character 
of,  218,  seq. 

Thebes,  Colossi  of,  156;  the  City 
of  the  Dead,  164 

Tombs  of  the  Kings,  164 

Tourists  in  Egypt,  their  antiquity, 
155;  Creek  and  Roman,  156; 
modern,  157 

Turkey,  its  participation  in  govern- 
ment of  the  Sudan,  51,52;  theoretical 
control  of  Egyptian  politics,  213,  srq. 

'Turks'  (Turco- Egyptians),  the  real 
governing  element  in  Egypt  be- 
fore 1882,  and  their  attitude  towards 
English  rule,  231,  232;  relations 
with  Nationalist  agitators,  257; 
rise  of   Young  Turks,   292 


Turkish,  the  official  language  of  the 
Egyptian  army,  51  ;  High  Com- 
missioner in  Cairo,  214;  Revolution, 
292, 

Wady  Halfa,  site  of,  1 ;  railway 
junction,  3 

Wellcome  Institute,  29 

White  Nile.     See  Nile. 

White  Slave  Traffic,  273 

Willcocks  (Sir  William),  134;  his 
scheme  for  perennial  irrigation, 
140;  his  presidency  of  Sir  Colin 
Scott  Moncrieff's  Commission,  1890, 
143;  modification  of  his  designs 
for  Assuan  dam,  144;  his  proposal 
to  utilize  the  great  lakes  as  storage 
reservoirs,  151,  218 

Wingate,  Sir  Reginald,  Sirdar  of  the 
Egyptian  army  and  Governor- 
General  of  the  Sudan,  xiv ;  Lord 
Cromer's  testimony  to  value  of 
his  long  tenure  of  office,  xx ; 
in  the  Palace  at  Khartum,  16; 
rescue  of  Father  Ohrwalder,  33 ; 
a  'shrewd  and  kindly  autocrat,' 
43 ;  his  linguistic  and  antiquarian 
attainments,  47 ;  his  military  ca- 
pacity in  the  campaign  of  Ghcdit, 
47 ;  his  brilliant  and  final  victory 
over  the  Khalifa  at  that  place, 
48 ;  student  and  soldier,  40 ;  at 
review  of  Khartum  garrison,  81 ; 
extraordinary  progress  in  prosjxrrity 
and  good  order  of  Sudan  under  his 
direction,  284 

Wolseley,  Viscount,  his  expedition 
in  1884,  7,  193;  his  attitude  to 
Suakin-Berber  Railway,  05 ;  his 
entry  into  Cairo,  in    1882,   216 

Women,  more  numerous  than  men 
in  the  Northern  Sudan,  23 ;  educa- 
tion of,  in  Khartum,  64;  their 
position  and  treatment  in  lines 
of  Sudanese  regiments,  85,  87; 
question  of  their  future  in  Egypt, 
301  ;  seclusion  of,  recognized  by 
established  Eastern  usage,  302; 
steps  towards  emancipation  of,  304; 
education  of,  305 


3i6 


INDEX 


Young,    Captain,    formerly    Mudir    of 

Omdurman,  35 
Young   Turk   movement,    its    effect  in 

Egypt,  257,  292 

Zaghlul  Pasha,  his  scheme  for 
sending  native  girl-students  to  be 
trained  in  England,  307 


Zeidab  Estate,  visited  and  described, 
120,  seq. 

Zubeir  Pasha,  his  origin  and  career, 
59,  60;  meeting  with  him  at  Khar- 
tum, 60;  his  farms  and  estates, 
124 


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MODERN    EGYPT 

By 
THE     EARL     OF     CROMER 

BRITISH    AGENT    AND    CONSUL   GENERAL    1883-1907 


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Egyptian  affairs.  As  every  one  knows,  Lord  Cromer  is  one  of  the  greatest  of 
English  pro-consuls,  and  as  he  has  been  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  virtual 
ruler  of  Egypt,  it  goes  without  saying  that  no  one  else  could  write  of  Egyptian 
affairs  with  a  tithe  of  Lord  Cromer's  authority.  In  addition  to  his  own  long 
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Cairo.  The  book  places  on  record,  therefore,  an  accurate  narrative  of  most  of 
the  principal  events  which  have  occurred  in  Egypt  and  the  Soudan,  since  the 
year  1876.  It  deals  fully  and  unreservedly  with  the  whole  exciting  history  of 
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able  book.     As  a  record  of  achieve-  — Review  of  Reviews. 
ment  it  stands   second    to   no   other 

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as  a  scholar  and  writer. "  exceptional.     Lord  Cromer  is  not  only 

—  Political  Science  Quarterly.  a  great  administrator  ;  he  stands  be- 
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The  Hon.  DEAN  C.    WORCESTER'S  New  Book 

The  Philippines 

By   DEAN   C    WORCESTER 

Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Philippine  Insular  Government,  1901-1913 
Author  of"  The  Philippine  Islands  and  Their  People,"  etc. 

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Islands;  from  1899  to  1901  was  a  member  of  the  U.S.  Philippine  Commission;  since  1901 
has  been  Secretary  of  the  Interior  to  the  Insular  Government,  and  who  in  1899  published 
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never  been  before  made  public.  With  practically  unlimited  material  on  which  to  draw  in 
the  way  of  illustrations,  very  fine  and  rare  photographs  intimately  related  with  the  text 
emphasize  the  lessons  which  they  are  respectively  intended  to  teach. 

The  result  is  a  work  of  the  greatest  importance  as  well  as  of  the  greatest  interest  to  all 
concerned  as  to  the  future  possibilities  of  the  Philippines  and  as  to  the  course  the  United 
States  Government  should  pursue  in  the  interest  of  the  several  peoples  of  the  Islands. 

CONTENTS 

Chapter  I.  —  View  Point  and  Subject  Matter.  Chapter  II.  —  Was  Independence  Promised  ?  Chap- 
ter III. —  Insurgent  "Cooperation."  Chapter  IV. — The  Premeditated  Insurgent  Attack.  Chapter 
V.  —  Insurgent  Rule  and  the  Wilcox-Sargeant  Report.  Chapter  VI.  —  Insurgent  Rule  in  the  Caga- 
yan  Valley.  Chapter  VII.  —  Insurgent  Rule  in  the  Visayas  and  Elsewhere.  Chapter  VIII.  —  Did 
We  Destroy  a  Republic?  Chapter  IX.  —  The  First  Philippine  Commission.  Chapter  X. — The 
Conduct  of  the  War.  —  Chapter  XI. — The  Second  Philippine  Commission.  Chapter  XII. — The 
Establishment  of  Civil  Government.  Chapter  XIII. — The  Philippine  Constabulary  and  Public 
Order.     Chapter  XIV.  —  American  Governors.     Chapter  XV. —  Health  Conditions.     Chapter  XVI. 

—  Baguio  and  the  Benguet  Road.  Chapter  XVII.  —  Coordination  of  Scientific  Work.  Chapter 
XVIII. —  Improved  Means  of  Communication.  Chapter  XIX.  —  Education.  Chapter  XX.  —  The 
Administration  of  Justice.  Chapter  XXI.  —  Financial  Reform.  Chapter  XXII.  —  The  Philippine 
Forests.  Chapter  XXIII.  —  Philippine  Lands.  Chapter  XXIV.  —  Peace  and  Prosperity.  Chapter 
XXV. — Commercial  Possibilities  of  the  Philippines.  Chapter  XXVI.  —  The  Picturesque  Philip- 
pines. Chapter  XXVII.  —  Fish  and  Game.  Chapter  XXVIII.  —  The  Exploration  of  Non-Christian 
Territory.  Chapter  XXIX.  —  The  Government  of  Non-Christian  Tribes.  Chapter  XXX.  —  The 
Government  of  Non-Christian  Tribes  (continued).    Chapter  XXXI.  —  Corrigenda.    Chapter  XXXII. 

—  Non-Christian  Tribe  Problems.  Chapter  XXXIII.— Slavery  in  the  Philippine  Islands.  Chapter 
XXXIV. —  The  Philippine  Assembly.  Chapter  XXXV. —  Is  Independence  Possible?  Chapter 
XXXVI.  —The  Future  of  the  Philippines. 


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service  both  to  the  history  of  the  American  colonies  and  to  economic  history. 
No  student  of  this  or  any  other  period,  whatever  his  predispositions,  can 
fail  to  welcome  a  work  which  is  so  effective  and  so  satisfying  in  its  conclu- 
sions as  this."  —  Political  Science  Quarterly. 

The  Old  Colonial  System 
1660-1754 

By   GEORGE   LOUIS    BEER 
Part  I.    The  Establishment  of  the  System,  1 660-1 688 

(In  Two  Volumes) 
Cloth.     Svo.      Vol.  i,  xvi  4-  38/  pages,  vol.  ii,  viii  -f  382 pages.     $4.00  net. 
'•The  words  of  praise  which  welcomed  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Beer's  earlier 
works,  thorough,  clear,  judicial,  may  well  be  offered  again.      His  studies  are 
models  of  historical  scholarship  and  workmanship." 

—  The  American  Historical  Review. 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

Publishers  64-66  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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